Insurrection
by Chaotic Alliance
Summary: The red-haired human says he was promised something. The blue hedgehog says they saved the world together. A war is no place to have to regain one's memory, especially not when both sides have claims to it. [Adaptation of Shadow the Hedgehog.]
1. Prologue: Amnesia

It was hard to breathe.

Instinctively, still not opening his eyes, he squirmed backwards, flicking his ears back against his head at the sound and sensation of moving soil. Yes, that was better, he could breathe now; he tried to do so through his nose rather than his mouth - his throat felt like it was on fire. The world smelled of soil and burnt things. The burnt smell was more familiar. Was that odd?

He opened one eye in a squint, for all the good it did: his surroundings were about as dark for it.

Something clicked. He was underground, for some reason. He got the feeling he didn't spend a lot of time there. No, outside was definitely where he wanted to be - he was cramped, in an awkward position, muddle-headed and with an awfully sore throat. He backed up, slipping on loose earth and stretching the cricks from his joints. Just how long had he been down there?

It took a while, but at last, he managed to back himself out of the hole he'd found himself waking up in. He shook himself off, sticks and soil clouding around him, making him cough and not doing his throat any favours. He turned around looked back at the hole, registering now that it was more a tunnel, hastily made and with a darkened circle of grass around it that, again, smelled burnt.

It was dark outside, night, he realised, and looking around the clearing made him freeze. A tree had come down very close to the tunnel, snapped in two by some great force, at what appeared to be the same angle the tunnel - crater? - was.

Did he do that?

He looked down at himself, at his fur, at his clothes. No scrapes marred either, none that he hadn't acquired working his way out of the hole. Still dazed despite the better air on the surface, a sound he didn't know brought his attention to the west. Rushing and gurgling...

He heard water and realised that extreme discomfort in his throat was thirst. Wobbling unsteadily at first, he made his way toward the water, toward life.

* * *

Morning came and saw him puzzling over himself again, sitting in another clearing beside the creek he'd found. He had two boots with odd little metal things in the soles, two gloves, and one golden bracelet on his right arm. It seemed, to him, that he should have two of those bracelets, as well, but he could neither remember having one on his left arm nor losing it.

He had, at least, identified his own species: Mobian hedgehog, black and red-striped, countershaded with a white ruff. Non-Mobian hedgehogs, those spent time underground. Probably. Certainly his sort didn't.

Furthermore, he was in a forest, and the sights and sounds were at once vaguely familiar and quite alien. The words for things came up from his memory as easily as walking, perhaps easier, but as far as his own identity was concerned, the hedgehog was still drawing a blank.

Frustrating, that.

He stood up and looked back into the forest. It was either spring or summer, probably closer to the latter, and he had a rough idea of what he should be looking for. Food, shelter...

The hedgehog set off, following his creek.

* * *

_He was running, and she had hold of his hand behind him, barely keeping up - they were panting in sheer terror._

_Human girl._

_They were being chased by four other humans, and he heard them yelling, though he couldn't make out the words. They ran into a room with a great clear viewing window, and their four pursuers stopped, one of them raising a weapon and shouting something at them._

_The girl shoved him somewhere, then slammed her hand on a control panel - he was contained, and he heard a gunshot. She fell, pulling another lever as she went down - the door slammed, and she rose again, unsteady, using the panel for support, bleeding._

_His own voice shouted_ "Maria!"

The hedgehog's heart was still pounding, he was still panting, and his head spun from sitting up so suddenly. Slowly calming down, he looked around. He was still in the forest, same as he had been when he'd gone to sleep. It was night again: he'd bedded down roughly mid-day.

He put a hand over his heart - its wild rate was nearly back down to resting. What was _that_ all about? It felt more real than it should have, less a sleeping nightmare than a waking one. He shivered. Yes, he remembered that - he felt almost certain it had actually happened.

But who was this Maria?

Reasoning that he wasn't going to get any more sleep after that, the hedgehog got to his feet and continued his aimless trek through the forest. He could see reasonably well, though half-remembered knowledge and deep-seated instincts said his hearing and energy-senses were probably the more reliable senses in the dark. Something about compensating for good colour vision in the daylight.

He heard and felt energy charging up behind him, and he leapt out of the way as a laser fired, passing him harmlessly. The hedgehog came out of his balled-up jump facing the other direction.

Some kind of robot.

He rocketed forward, curling again and attacking. The robot didn't even appear to see him coming: he bisected it and landed to look at its smoking remains.

"...That's made out of metal." Obviously. He looked at himself. "...I don't think people are supposed to be able to do that."

Not normal people, though everyone in the world did have a Chaos Energy field to work with. The hedgehog closed his eyes, grabbing the memory and forcing it to stay. Everyone _did_ have one. The trick was controlling it, flaring it to protect fragile spikes and bones when running into things at that kind of speed.

He opened his eyes again and took another look at the robot. The design was unfamiliar. Probably. "Well. Thanks for the lesson, in any case." The hedgehog moved on again, yet more alert in the darkness.

* * *

"And that would be a road." It went over the creek.

He knew the concept as surely as if he always had, and even saw a car rush past, going quite a bit faster than he'd been walking.

Not, he suddenly remembered, as fast as he _could _go, however. The hedgehog leaned on a tree and lifted one foot, looking at the metal bits lining the bottom of his boot. _Jets_, he realised, thrilling in the memory - jets he could use to _run_, faster than any other person in the world.

Maybe?

He frowned, letting the foot drop. What wasn't he remembering? He shook his head and concentrated on the jets, and before he knew it, was channelling his Chaos Energy through them, hovering. He took off down the road after the car, muscle memory taking over for his missing intellectual one, legs weaving easily around in a pattern and letting him go _fast_.

He broke off into the forest as the car came into sight again and watched it disappear over a rise. The shadow of another vehicle rose up beside where it had been, _Shadow the Hedgehog._

He blinked. Talking to himself, he tried the flash of memory out: "Shadow the Hedgehog."

He paused for a little, thinking about it, as the second car crested the rise and sped off.

"Well, it's the right species, at least."

Thirteen days wasn't bad going for remembering his name.

* * *

It was the sixteenth day.

Following the road, Shadow had eventually come to the outskirts of a city, where he stopped on a hill overlooking it. It seemed nice enough, as far as his mental concept of a city went, but some deep instinct, as certain as the ones about what trees to sleep under and which to avoid, still made him wary of entering.

A newspaper drifted by, caught briefly on his leg, then was whisked away by the wind. He saw something about a fifty-year anniversary before the print became illegible.

_Fifty years... _That certainly felt important. _Why?_

A gigantic flame plumed out from one of the city's skyscrapers, instantly catching Shadow's attention - the sound of a resounding explosion jarred his bones seconds after. More followed, spreading haphazardly through what he could see of the buildings, and a set of aircraft streaked by overhead, launching missiles and firing energy weapons. All at once, the seemingly robust city life had dissolved into a blare of disaster and panic. Shadow picked up his ears, stared for a few moments, then huffed and turned away. His instincts had served him well since he'd woken up, and right now they were saying he didn't have time for the people living there, human or Mobian, especially not with them panicking like that. As he walked away, however, a voice spoke, surprisingly close and surprisingly audible over the din of the broken city in the distance.

"Shadow…"

The hedgehog stopped, stunned for a moment, then turned. A hologram shimmered in the early evening air, displaying an image of a smartly-dressed human, posture all but screaming leadership. His clothes were black as Shadow's own fur, hair swept back into twin red peaks - the colour looked abnormal, even though Shadow carried the very same in his stripes. Behind the hologram, he could just about make out the shape of the small, floating drone that was projecting it.

"As you can see," said the human, gesturing behind himself at the broken city, "the day of reckoning is almost here." His voice was distorted somewhat by the drone's cheap speakers, but was smooth, collected, and deep, again one of self-assured leadership, though to Shadow's ear something sounded odd about the way he was emphasising certain words and pronouncing certain syllables. Still, for all the human's strange appearance and accent, more important things about what he was saying took precedence.

"What? Who are you, and how do you know I'm Shadow?"

The human ignored the question. "You must find the seven Chaos Emeralds and bring them to me, as promised. Then the true reckoning will come." The human smiled, a vicious smile that part of Shadow shied away from and another recognised and exulted in. The hedgehog shook his head, baffled.

"What are you talking about?"

Above them, help for the city was arriving in the form of fast-moving military jets, which were engaging the invaders' own aerial vehicles. One such battle screamed over to Shadow and the little drone; the human in its hologram looked up as they passed by overhead, and Shadow, too, saw a missile miss and come blazing toward them. The drone arced out of the way instants before the missile slammed into the ground directly below where it had been - Shadow threw up an arm and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the drone was gone, leaving him alone with a muddle of questions in his amnesiac brain

"Just what was that all about?" he asked himself. "If he says he knows who I am, then like it or not, I have to believe him." He shook his head, spines rattling lightly. "The only way I'm going find the secrets of my past is to get those Chaos Emeralds!"

And he was off, hoverskating into the city. Whatever a Chaos Emerald was, anyway - he had a feeling he'd know one when he saw it.


	2. Chapter 1: The Burning City

Despite the explosions, the gunfire, the mayhem, Shadow made it safely into the city, where he could see there were two sides fighting it out: soldiers and what appeared to almost be civilians, though not quite. The soldiers' ranks were mostly if not entirely made up of humans; the near-civilians, human and Mobian alike, were all wearing an unfamiliar, swirly red symbol over whatever they'd been in when the attack began. A stylised sun, maybe, or a buzz saw, or a curled hedgehog. Allies of that strange hologram, perhaps. In any case, Shadow didn't want to ally himself too closely with one side or the other, although the soldiers made him uncomfortable. There was certainly _something_ powerful in here: Shadow managed to pin the words 'Chaos Emerald' to it, and knew that when he found the source of that power, he'd have what he'd been looking for, and it was this that had all his focus.

He didn't get far before the little drone reappeared, hovering in his way. With it no longer projecting the hologram, Shadow could get a better look at the device itself: it was more-or-less disk-shaped, with its propulsion system spread radially around it on thin, mobile struts. The struts were black, fading to a dark purple on the central disk, capped off by a red-and-yellow eye painted around the central camera and holoprojector.

"Shadow," said the voice of the human from before, "I've sent this drone to guide you. There are two Chaos Emeralds in this city: if we can take out the soldiers, Westopolis will be ours."

The hedgehog said nothing and hoverskated further on, the drone following. As he ran further through the smoldering wreck of the city, however, he realised that the soldiers reminded him of that horrible image, the gruesome vision of someone named Maria dying of a gunshot. His instincts, his core, said they were evil. Coming across a skirmish, he abruptly changed direction, crashing into one of the soldiers and rebounding into two of his fellows before they or the insurgents had time to respond. He wasn't trying to kill anyone, not really, but as he fled to leave the last one to the red-marked fighters, he heard one of them call a "Whoa! Great work!"

That made him feel pretty good, all things considered.

Running further on, avoiding fights where he could and attacking soldiers where he couldn't, Shadow came to a pitched battle over an armoured truck, one that surely belonged to the military - it had their logo and name proudly painted on its side. GUN. The hedgehog curled his ears back and watched the two sides keenly from atop a fallen building. No, he definitely didn't like the soldiers.

The insurgents had been winning when he'd arrived, and it was they who were victorious: with the guards felled, they marched the driver out of the truck at gunpoint as Shadow leapt down from his vantage point. The soldier stared at him as if betrayed, but was knocked out before he could say anything.

One of the insurgent fighters nodded at the hedgehog. "We were told to expect you." He leaned into the front of the vehicle and pressed something that opened the back doors. "The Emerald is all yours."

Shadow jumped in and gazed down at the green gem. Now _here_ was a jewel - he could sense its powerful energy as much as he could see its colour, more than beautiful, perfectly balanced on its point and unperturbed by the disaster all around it. The thing was almost hypnotising. He barely heard the red-marked fighters' leader's voice as it came from the drone again.

"Good work, Shadow. Now, finish off the rest of those pathetic soldiers; once they are eliminated, the city will be ours, and you can get the second Chaos Emerald."

The insurgents looked up at the drone, surprised. Apparently, they recognised the voice, one of them calling a surprised "Sir!"

The drone, judging by the change in how its owner's voice sounded, swivelled to face her. "You've done well today, but this is only the beginning." Turning back towards Shadow, it continued with, "There's no time to waste."

Shadow blinked, shook his head, and picked up the Chaos Emerald. After a little more thought, he stored it, letting its energies merge with his own. He knew he could summon it into its crystalline form whenever he felt like it, though he couldn't remember having done so before. As he jumped out of the vehicle, he asked, "Where _is_ the second Emerald?" He couldn't, at present, sense it like he had the first one.

The drone briefly projected a map, a location marked. "Our information places it here, at ten miles from your current location." The map shut off. It was distance, then, that prevented him from detecting it. "But that's less important now that you have one. Most important is solidifying our grasp of this city. Keep going."

"Very well." And Shadow sped off again. He was just starting to feel the second Chaos Emerald when he heard a voice call his name - it cut into his thoughts, tugged at the fog of his memories. He _knew_ that voice. Shadow looked up and saw a blue-furred hedgehog standing on a ledge several stories up, staring down at him; a large jump a moment later saw them next to each other. Shadow could only look at him in confusion - whoever it was, he certainly seemed happy to see him.

"Long time no see!" said the other hedgehog, grinning, but his cheerful demeanour quickly gave way to an upbeat sort of determination. He glanced around the city, flicking his ears back for a moment. "I have no idea who they are, but these guys really mean business! Let's you and me show 'em a thing or two!"

Slowly, Shadow spoke. "And who are you?"

"What? Shadow, are you kidding?! It's me, Sonic!"

He definitely recognised the voice, and this Sonic character really did seem familiar. He was wearing about the same things as Shadow himself - shoes, gloves, and not a lot else. He did have two bracelets, one clear, and one...

Shadow pointed at the other one. "Is that mine?"

"Huh?" Sonic looked at it, as if seeing it for the first time. "...Yeah." Just for a second, only a second, he seemed sad. The moment passed. "So c'mon! Let's put a stop to all this!"

"Their leader knew me, too. He sent a drone to follow me." No matter how familiar Sonic seemed, Shadow didn't truly remember either him or the insurgency leader.

"Huh? Who?"

"I didn't catch his name."

Sonic looked around. "Well, guess you lost the drone, anyway." Looking back at Shadow, he tilted his head. "You weren't _helping_ them, were you?"

Shadow paused before responding. "I was."

"_What?!_" Sonic was instantly shocked and angry, and at the same time seemed like he'd half-expected Shadow's response. Shadow flicked his ears back, but stood his ground.

"He knew me. He said something about a day of reckoning and getting all the Chaos Emeralds."

"Whoever he is, that guy's a lunatic!" Sonic made a sharp gesture at the destruction all around them. "Just look at all this! You helped us _save the world, _Shadow!"

Shadow shifted his weight back, indecisive. He didn't truly remember either one of them - which side was right? He couldn't know, didn't have any information, only his conflicting instincts. He _did_, however, know the Chaos Emeralds were important. He stood confused for a few seconds, Sonic eyeing him, before abruptly darting off. Sonic called after him and tried to give chase, but though they seemed evenly matched in speed - was that strange? - in the bedlam of the besieged city, Shadow lost him and ran on, dodging soldier and insurgent alike and shoving aside those who had other ideas.

More than his vague memories of Sonic, more than the fact the insurgency leader had been the first to know his name, one thought dominated Shadow's mind: he really didn't like being ordered around. Right or wrong, he'd formed what was at least the beginnings of a plan. He would get the Emerald, get out of the city, and find somewhere to sit down and figure the whole mess out without people yelling at him. He had to do it quickly, as well, before either Sonic or the flying drone caught up to him. He ran like he couldn't say he'd ever run before, into a tunnel, past and through barricades, all his being focused on one thing and that alone. Beside him, around him, inside him, the green Chaos Emerald reacted to his will. Before he was even aware of doing it, Shadow's subconscious tapped into the gem's power and poured it into an effortless run that turned into outright flight, jets off and legs stretched behind him as he careened through the air, his body protected from anything in his way by a glowing extension of his normal Chaos Energy field.

_So this is why the Emeralds are important - what power!_

He released the energy as he felt himself oversteering the other Emerald, which, much like the green one had been, was the site of a heated battle. The fighters on both sides had stopped, staring at the passing streak of lightning that had been Shadow, but by the time he came into the fray, knocking aside any who barred his path, they had recovered, firing at each other and at him. Nothing could stop him, though: Shadow grabbed the Chaos Emerald and bolted.

Adrenaline and his natural resilience sped Shadow past the outskirts of the city and a little beyond, where he dropped to a sit, looked at his right leg, and abruptly realised he'd been shot. It wasn't, he felt, anything too serious; even though he couldn't remember so much as seeing his own blood before, some instinct said this was just a grazing shot, in and out without hitting anything too vital, something he could recover from. He had the distinct impression he'd dealt with worse before. Where, of course, was still a mystery.

Still sitting up, the hedgehog leaned against someone's abandoned garden wall and bowed his head. He was tired, and had a feeling he should be getting all the rest he could. Not long later, he was asleep, the city still burning behind him.


	3. Chapter 2: Allegiance

Shadow actually did manage to get some dreamless sleep, the city a safe distance behind him, but far too soon was startled awake by something. He stood, flinching at the stiff injury on his leg, and called "Who's there?"

It was the drone, as it turned out, hovering in front of him. After a few seconds, it projected its hologram of the insurgency's leader, more clearly an illusion than ever in the pre-dawn starlight; he was angry, in a tightly-controlled, dangerous way. "You deliberately disobeyed me, Shadow. Because of this, we lost a lot more people than we needed to. There are consequences to that."

Shadow crossed his arms. "I don't even know who you are. I met someone else who remembered me in the city: he had my other bracelet."

The human was no less angry for that explanation, but he was silent for a second before responding. "Your memory is even more damaged than I thought, isn't it. I wonder what Professor Gerald was forced to do to you." No less angry, no, but keenly watching Shadow's reactions.

For his part, the Mobian frowned. "Gerald?"

"So, you don't even remember your maker."

"No," said Shadow, a little frustrated, "apparently not."

"Hmm. Regardless, you still have a lot to do, Shadow."

"And just who are you, anyway?"

The human smiled, another expression that chilled Shadow's blood at the same time as it flared it. "We are the Black Arms, Shadow. And we have not forgotten what happened fifty years ago, nor before, even if you have. Now! There is a series of ruins far to the east of here. Go there at once!"

The hedgehog gave him a dubious look and didn't move for a few moments; the Black Arms leader stared back at him. Finally, reasoning he didn't have any other leads, Shadow limped to get to skating speed and sped off. If he saw Sonic again, perhaps he'd ask him to explain what was going on from his perspective.

* * *

Shadow journeyed for several hours, going slower than usual, and it was a little before noon before he saw the ruins. The insurgency had reached them long before he had, and the old buildings were already the site of a fierce battle, smoke pluming ahead and gunshots in the distance. He'd have to find out just what the insurgency were doing there, and despite what the hologram had said, Shadow was still trying to stay neutral as he entered the area, avoiding the Black Arms and their battles with GUN.

He hadn't been running through the ruins long when, once again, someone called him. Looking round in response to his name, he saw another Mobian, a red... a red _echidna_? Was _that_ strange?

The echidna stopped in front of him. "It's good to see you back!" he said, sounding calmer than Sonic, more serious. "I should have known better than to think you wouldn't make it."

He was less familiar, though, whereas with Sonic he'd _known_ he had heard the voice before. Shadow looked on in confusion, frowning. "How long have I been gone?"

There was a pause as the echidna considered that. "Nineteen days, now." Shadow put it closer to seventeen; did that mean he'd been unconscious for two whole days? "Don't you remember what happened?"

Shadow shook his head. "I don't remember much of anything. That Black Arms leader recognised me, I met someone called Sonic back some miles who had my other bracelet, and I guess you remember me as well."

The echidna startled, though he quickly settled himself. He looked around, frowning with worry. "Now isn't a good time to explain. But my name is Knuckles, and you fell from orbit. Even Sonic thought you were dead."

Now it was Shadow's turn to startle. _Orbit_, of all things? But, strangely, that kind of felt right - he couldn't put a finger on it, but orbit was entirely reasonable. Home, even? As for being dead, he was slowly coming to the realisation that it was a perfectly logical assumption, given the circumstances he'd woken up in.

Knuckles continued. "I don't know what these 'Black Arms' guys want, but I think they're trying to activate the ancient temples here. They won't be able to control the power of the defences; even if they could, they'd just misuse it. I'm going to stop them before they do any more damage and tear this place apart."

"I see." Shadow broke off, running ahead, Knuckles following for a little before Shadow lost him in a skirmish with the insurgency. He thought he'd just find what the Black Arms leader had to say about all this, and, sure enough, he soon found the little drone.

It swivelled to face him, greeting the hedgehog with a simple "There you are, Shadow." Shadow stopped in front of it, his weight off his injured leg, and let the drone's master continue. "You can see what's happening here, can't you? You can turn the tide in our favour. There are five temples here, each one containing a great power; activate them and we'll be one step closer to our final reckoning!"

"Hm. And where does this final reckoning of yours lead us?"

"Then this so-called nation of peace you now stand in pays for what it forced on the world, and our long-awaited victory will be complete!" Whatever the merits of his cause, the man was certainly giving it his all. Shadow was quiet for a moment, considering, letting some weight shift to his hurt leg.

"Where are the temples located?"

The leader's voice sounded ever-so-slightly pleased as his drone projected a map, the temples marked. "They are here, according to our reconnaissance. We have been studying them for some time, but only recently gained the power to activate them ourselves - you, Shadow... you would find it much easier. Our people on the ground will explain more."

Shadow nodded and set off - the drone tried but couldn't keep up with him. He had already made his decision; his path was taking him toward one of the temples.

At first, anyway.

He looped around back to where he'd left Knuckles and found him further on, strong fists and sharp knuckles wrecking Black Arms robots, strength held back against the people, disabling and knocking them out. Shadow joined the fray - spinning into an insurgent, knocking him out!

"Shadow!" Knuckles called, more welcoming him into the group than anything, even if it _was_ a group of one and now two. The pair of them made short work of the Black Arms, coming to the rescue of a lone GUN soldier, who could only hold position behind a fallen pillar and watch them in shock. Shadow kept an eye on him as Knuckles brushed himself off, watching as he looked from him to Knuckles to the insurgents and back again, evidently at a loss.

"Ready to go?" asked the echidna. Shadow nodded, and they were off, Knuckles yelling "Let's take back these ruins!" The last he saw of the soldier, he had opened his communicator to report in.

"Where were you, anyway?" asked Knuckles as they made their way toward the first temple. Shadow got the impression the other Mobian wasn't following him so much as running a little behind him, as if he already knew where their destination was.

"Speaking with the Black Arms' leader. He wanted me to activate the temples here."

"So that _is_ what they're after!" Knuckles shook his head. "There definitely is great power here. I hope I never have to use it, but I could if I needed to."

"You said they wouldn't be able to control it, right? Then they must think I can."

"I don't know. Activating it would be easy - controlling it would be the hard part."

Shadow nodded, and they fell to silence. Between them and the temple was one more skirmish - and, initially, the Black Arms seemed to think Shadow on their side, the government's soldiers agreeing. Shadow heard a gun fire at him and dodged, supersonic speed barely letting it miss him and strike an insurgent. Knuckles whirled on the soldier who'd fired, punching through a Black Arms drone as if in emphasis.

"What're you doing, you idiot?!"

The soldiers held fire for long enough to let Knuckles and Shadow take down the rest of the Black Arms; Shadow dimly heard a "Sorry!" called after them as they continued on their way. Perhaps the soldiers had figured out they had their hands full enough without antagonising their allies, though Shadow couldn't logically blame them after Westopolis.

Once they were in the temple, they saw a group of insurgents about to attach a set of machines to a giant orb in the centre - it was as big around as a grown human was tall. Knuckles yelled some battle cry and went after them; the insurgents fired back, but there was a noticeable delay as they worked out what to do about Shadow. Their loss.

With the Black Arms down and Shadow keeping guard, Knuckles stepped up to the orb and rested his hand on it. It took him a minute to check on it, but it was with relief that he lowered his hands. "It's not active; they didn't do anything to it. This temple's still safe." He looked consideringly at the downed fighters. "...Let's keep it that way." The echidna grabbed a length of stray cable and set about tying up the insurgents; Shadow got the idea after a moment and helped, having better range of motion in his gloves.

As they worked, Knuckles kept talking. "Do you remember anything about what you were doing in orbit?"

Shadow shook his head. "No. But... was I up there for a long time?"

"I think so. That diary we found said it started fifty years ago; you lived on that space colony, ARK, until it was shut down." He ended the sentence by tying off his end of the cable, with the result that several insurgents were tied together by their hands behind their backs.

Shadow tied off his own end, pondering that. "Whose diary?"

"Professor Gerald Robotnik's." The red one punched through the Black Arms' delicate equipment, scattering scrap, but remained in the central chamber, looking through their things. "Apparently, he was Dr. Robotnik's grandfather."

"Gerald?" Shadow blinked; he remembered that name, at least. "The Black Arms' leader said he created me."

Knuckles nodded, distracted for a moment as he rooted around a bit more. When he turned back to Shadow, he was holding a first aid kit; evidently he'd noticed the limp and the raw wound. "There was a project to create the 'ultimate life form', it said." He was very matter-of-fact as he said it, as if this wasn't in the least momentous, and handed the kit over.

Shadow looked inside, and was privately elated that it had antiseptic and bandages, and more importantly that he knew what to do with such things. He took a seat on the orb's steps and set about patching himself up. "Thanks." A pause. "What else did it say?"

"It went crazy," Knuckles answered, bluntly, though he was trying to be sympathetic. Words didn't appear his strong suit. "His granddaughter died when the colony was shut down. By the time we got to the end... he'd gone insane."

The hedgehog frowned. That _felt_ familiar, in any case... "Was her name Maria?"

"I think so." Knuckles frowned as well. "...Yes. Do you remember her?"

"I remember the name, anyway." Shadow observed his own injury, remembered that awful image of someone dying of a similar wound. "...She was killed by the soldiers."

Knuckles jumped, and Shadow finished wrapping his injury. The hedgehog stood up, still keeping most of his weight off his right leg. If anything, cleaning it out had just made it hurt more. "That's all I know."

"Hm. ...Well, I don't know any more about what happened back then, but I'll tell you what we did up there once this is over." He beckoned Shadow with a head tilt, and the hedgehog followed him out. Thus they continued, but, a little more than halfway to the next temple, Shadow felt a familiar calling deep in his bones. He stopped, ears pricked, and Knuckles caught up to him.

"What is it?"

"There's another Chaos Emerald here!"

"There is." The echidna was completely unsurprised. "I sensed it earlier. It must have reformed after you and Sonic let go of them."

Shadow blinked. _Let go after doing what? _

Knuckles looked out across the ruins in the direction of the Emerald and continued speaking in a vaguely explanatory tone. "We'll get it after we've saved the ruins. It'll take too long to find it now." After a brief moment to consider this, Shadow nodded and continued on. Later worked for him, and Knuckles was right, in any case.

They reached the centre of the temple long ahead of the Black Arms and shortly before a group of soldiers. Knuckles merely stopped to check on the orb before continuing on, confident GUN would take care of things. As they continued to the third, there was a marked difference in the reactions Shadow got from both sides: the insurgents cursed at him, both in Shadow's language and another he couldn't make sense of, and the soldiers cheered. He was indifferent to the Arms by now, but wasn't sure he liked being cheered on by the soldiers; deep inside him, something still said they were evil. Even so, he felt he was doing the right thing by his instincts: the ruins were amazing, would have been spectacular to wander around if it wasn't full of people trying to kill each other. He couldn't remember forgetting about such a place.

As the pair emerged from a cluster of buildings about a quarter of the way to the third temple, the wind suddenly kicked up, screaming around the half-destroyed ruins and convening into a swirling tornado somewhere in the distance - to Shadow's eye, it matched the location of the fourth temple they would have visited. Knuckles seemed to agree, stopping with alarm and anger.

"No! They've activated one of them!" He started running, calling at Shadow over the wind. "I can shut it down if we hurry, but if they activate a second one I don't know if I can control it!"

Shadow caught up to him in seconds, and offered a hand. "Come on!" Of the two, he was faster, and he didn't have any idea how to shut off the orb when they got there. Knuckles balked for a second before pragmatism won over pride, and he locked a powerful hand around Shadow's arm, easily holding on as Shadow climbed to speed; he entered a gliding position, whipping out behind the hedgehog like a strange red flag, and felt a lot lighter than Shadow expected.

Keeping them going in the direction they needed to go was more of a battle than Shadow had anticipated, too. Hoverskating didn't provide any traction, and even the two Mobians' combined weight couldn't anchor them well in the wind; the dust and debris was blinding and deafening, and Shadow had ears back and eyes nearly closed to protect them. His energy-senses weren't of much use: Chaos Energy didn't care whether it formed its rings above solid ground or over chasms. Knuckles called directions over the storm, keeping him from missing their destination, and after what felt like too long, Shadow saw a dark shape ahead of them - another temple. Shadow took them just inside and shook his head out, raising his ears again and following Knuckles as he ran for the centre.

It had not, thankfully, been yet activated, but on the other side of the temple, GUN and the Black Arms were in the middle of a pitched shootout. Both sides had taken refuge from the winds inside, and even as they heard one of the soldiers yell something about too much interference, both Mobians joined the battle, Knuckles punching and Shadow spinning through the air. One soldier pointed them out to his fellow.

"Look! It's Shadow! And Knu-"

"_Keep your head down!_"

Sound advice. The Black Arms were still shooting everywhere, their bullets quickly trying to converge on Shadow's fast-moving form as Knuckles ducked behind a hefty piece of masonry. On his own way to cover, Shadow snatched a dropped pistol before one of the injured insurgents could pick it up, ducked behind a pillar on roughly the same side as the soldiers, and regarded the weapon. He couldn't tell whose side it was from, and holding it felt, on a gut level, pretty wrong. But, on the other hand, there was trouble, and he needed to get out of it. He was already sped up by the battle, perceiving things as if in slow motion - a necessary mental compensation for his speed.

He took a shot at a Black Arms fighter, sped up perception giving him more time to aim than other people, and though the insurgent cried out and fell, as far as Shadow knew, she wouldn't die. Knuckles looked in his direction as he fired, kept watching through another couple of shots, but didn't seem to make much of it. One of the soldiers peeked over a fallen pillar, watching him and assessing the situation.

"...All right, people, come on! Let's lay down some cover fire here!"

All at once, the soldiers popped up and opened fire, forcing the Black Arms to duck. Shadow broke cover and charged, still holding the pistol in one hand but relying on his own natural weapons again - safer or not, the gun made him uncomfortable. Knuckles was close behind, arriving as Shadow had knocked down two of the insurgents, a third taking a shot that didn't seem to do the hedgehog any harm before falling, a fourth knocked down on the last rebound. Knuckles punched down a fifth with an effective jumping uppercut, spikes just barely missing her chin as Shadow came to rest.

Knuckles turned to face him, raising one fist. "Got 'em!"

"So there's only two more to defend."

The echidna nodded. "I doubt they'll be moving in this. We have to stop the one they activated, and make sure to defend the last one."

The soldiers peered cautiously at them from their shelter, and as Shadow nodded, Knuckles tilted his head at him. Prompted by the hedgehog's confused frown, Knuckles gestured at Shadow's spikes. "That was a bit close."

Shadow looked, and startled as he saw them in his peripheral vision: his upper headspikes each had a neat bullet hole though them. "So it was." He shook his head; he'd have to be more careful.

The soldiers were, by now, warily leaving their shelter to come investigate. Sharp hedgehog ears picked out two of them talking quietly, a lower-ranked one to someone of a higher rank if Shadow was reading their badges correctly. "What about our orders?"

A headshake. "I'm guessing they're out of date. Command aren't on the ground and we can't contact them, so it's my responsibility. Count yourself lucky we _had_ help."

Shadow flicked the ear closest to them and looked back at Knuckles. "Let's move on." At a nod, they left the soldiers to deal with the Black Arms and exited the temple - stepping back into a maelstrom, where the winds were continuing to pick up speed and power, dropping some of the stones from the top of the temple. Knuckles gritted his teeth and lifted one arm to shield his face; Shadow did the same and pinned his ears back, dropping the pistol to offer his hand.

"Which way?!"

Knuckles pointed with his other hand. "That way!"

With the echidna hanging on, Shadow set off again into the worsening storm. Knuckles, gliding again, provided almost as much lift as Shadow's own jet boots, but going forward was getting harder and harder, Shadow fighting for every inch of straight flying.

"It's no good - you'll have to ride with it!" Knuckles shouted over the gale and crashing rocks.

"With what?!"

"With the wind! Let it carry you!"

_If you fight a current too much, you'll only wear yourself out and drown. _Where had he heard that one before? It didn't matter: Knuckles and his own half-remembered instincts were right, and, no longer fighting the wind, more flowing with it, things suddenly got a lot easier. Shadow eventually got himself settled in a rough surfing position - it reminded him of something, of letting gravity move him down narrow metal.

Eventually, Knuckles called a sharp "Go left!" which, as far as Shadow could tell, meant going directly into the tornado's heart. In spite of this fact, Shadow obeyed him, or did his best: the wind had other ideas, lofting them everywhere _but_ directly left, higher and spiralling and-

Suddenly the wind was calm. The fourth temple was directly below them. Both Mobians brushed sand and grit from their eyes, Shadow slowly lowering them down to the temple roof.

"Good work, Shadow."

"Thank you. I doubt I'd have thought of working with the wind as quickly on my own, though."

Knuckles smiled as they touched down. "I've had a lot of practice." He and Shadow separated briefly to look for a way in - it was the hedgehog who found a staircase, beckoning his companion over. As Knuckles approached, he said, "All right. Since this is the one they activated, it'll probably be full of them. Be ready."

Shadow nodded and led the way down. Sure enough, emerging from the steps saw him facing quite a large Black Arms force, armed to the nails and fangs, pointing guns in his direction.

"Stop! - Declare your side!"

The hedgehog broke into sharp motion, yelling "Not with you!" at him - but despite the forceful answer, the suddenness of it all jarred him, and as the first shots fired, he wanted to be _anywhere but there-_

And he was. The next thing Shadow knew, there was a bright flash, and he was back on the roof - he'd managed to do something with the Chaos Emeralds' power again, this time outright warping instead of using his speed. He landed, looked at himself, marvelled. What _else_ could he do with the Chaos Emeralds?

Abruptly remembering Knuckles was still down there, Shadow darted down the stairs, and to his relief found the echidna quietly making his way back up. The other Mobian looked relieved, too, exhaling. "That was a close one."

"Could I always do that?"

Knuckles blinked. "Yes." He continued back up the stairs, Shadow following. "It's called Chaos Control. When you fell... it was after you and Sonic used it on the entire ARK."

Again, Shadow felt that was familiar. The word 'ARK', in particular - Knuckles had mentioned that place before, but now the word settled deep in his bones, conflicting feelings of home and heartache taunting his conscious mind. Shadow mulled that over as they came back to the roof, watching Knuckles methodically looking around with his focus on the building beneath his feet.

"...That was what was in orbit, wasn't it." Shadow frowned more deeply. "A colony?"

Knuckles knelt, looking up at Shadow again. "That's right. I had no idea anything that big was up there."

Shadow nodded. He'd have to find out more... later. "What are you doing?"

"There's a weakness in the ceiling here," Knuckles answered, gesturing. "If I dig from this spot, we can come down on them from above, and it won't do as much damage to the ruins, either."

In hindsight, that was pretty obvious, really. Knuckles burrowed down surprisingly quickly - though the Black Arms were expecting the two of them, it wasn't from that direction, and they couldn't use their weapons effectively between the surprise and the risk of crossfire. The pair made short work of the insurgents, downing and knocking out the lot.

Shadow stood guard as Knuckles approached the active sphere, where he rested his hands on the floating, greenish device and mumbled to himself for several minutes. Shadow had to knock down one of the Arms starting to come to before it was done, the sphere deactivating and gently coming to rest in its alcove again. Outside, the wind died down to a low whistle. Shadow detached the insurgents' equipment from the orb and crashed through the delicate machinery, and Knuckles smiled approvingly before turning to face the squad. One way or another, none of them would be in any condition to try that again.

"...I think GUN can handle them. Let's make sure the last temple stays defended."

Shadow nodded, one more time letting Knuckles grab on, and they were away again. With the tornado spinning the last of its energy out, they saw soldiers emerging from their hiding places, and heard more than a few appreciative whoops and cheers. The black hedgehog still wasn't entirely sure what to make of that - they still made him uneasy, instincts still marking GUN as an evil force - but, after all, they were on the same side.

The run to the final temple was more or less uneventful, no more insurgents barring the way. They had to have made one massive push for the one they'd activated, most of their forces drawn away from the third and fifth temples. There was, however, a small and nearly finished skirmish at the temple steps; Shadow and Knuckles arrived just in time to see a canine insurgent shot, something that made Shadow flinch internally. The lone remaining Black Arms fighter dragged his companion behind cover.

"Surrender!" called a GUN soldier. "Surrender, and you won't be harmed!"

Two breaths passed, and the answer came with an unaimed shot at them. "We'll never surrender!"

Shadow entered the conversation. "Just what are you fighting for?" He didn't understand - for what purpose, what reckoning, were they aiming?

The insurgent's voice was incredulous as he answered. "The United Federation is build on nothing but violence and lies! It's past time we took what's rightfully ours! You - you of _all_ people should know _that!_"

The hedgehog didn't have a response to that one. Knuckles did, half talking to himself, puzzled: "Should you?" And he was gone again, vaulting over the masonry and bringing his fist down hard on something. Shadow heard the insurgent collapse and left the soldiers to deal with him, following Knuckles into the temple.

"Do you have any idea what that guy was talking about?" Knuckles asked.

"I'm afraid not." That said, he thought it over for a few moments. "...Their leader did mention something about a day of reckoning when I first saw him."

"Day of reckoning, huh..." The echidna shrugged. "Doesn't seem like a very good idea to me." Not that he had any idea what the Black Arms were on about, either.

"...Come to think of it," Shadow continued, "He mentioned something about fifty years ago, too." He frowned, remembering both those words and the newspaper he'd seen right before the attack at the city he came from. "Was there some kind of fifty-year anniversary recently?"

"Fifty years? Hm." Another shrug. "All I really know about is the ARK being shut down. I don't know a whole lot about recent history."

Shadow really wanted to know more about that - why didn't he? - but they were far enough into the temple that more talking would give them away to anyone near the orb, and they both fell silent. Reaching the orb chamber from a level above, they saw a small force of soldiers guarding it, one of their number bandaged up and out of action, with no sign of the insurgents. Perhaps, with the push for the activated temple, they hadn't ever made it in.

As the two of them reached the bottom of the stairs to the orb's level, Shadow hesitated. On the same side or not, he wasn't sure how far the news had spread through the soldiers, and he gestured Knuckles forward; the echidna obligingly headed into the chamber, and the soldiers relaxed some after an initial weapons-pointing. The highest ranked among them asked, "What's the situation outside?"

Knuckles blinked. "Well, we deactivated the orb in the other temple..."

"What's that mean?"

"The wind's stopped. Has anyone touched this one?"

"Not on your life. It seemed like those crazy Black Arms guys wanted it, so we figured we'd hole up in here and protect it."

Shadow spoke up, cautiously emerging from his cover. "Then that means they should all be defended, now."

A second soldier startled. "Look, it's Shadow!" For a moment, Shadow tensed, ready to run, but he and the soldiers alike were stayed by their leader.

"Didn't you hear the comm chatter?"

"What?" Knuckles asked.

"...Sorry. Command must've got their wires crossed - we were sent in with intel that, well, he was with the Black Arms. If he's with you...?"

"Of course he is." And there was a tone that brooked no argument. The lead soldier was relieved.

"Well, that's good. I'll report back once the interference clears."

"Good." Knuckles turned back to Shadow. "Let's see if there are any more of them out there, then get the Chaos Emerald."

"All right," Shadow answered, and after giving a nod to the GUN soldiers, he walked with Knuckles out of the temple.

The wind had died down completely by then, and from their vantage point, they couldn't see any signs of continued fighting. Though there were surely still Black Arms insurgents out there, the temples were all safe, and, coming to the same conclusion without exchanging words, the Mobians made their way for the Chaos Emerald, each following his energy-senses.

Knuckles, especially, was in good spirits, though it showed in a quiet kind of satisfaction. "That wasn't so bad."

"I guess not." A little more walking in silence, and Shadow spoke again. "So what did happen up there?"

"On the space colony?" Knuckles frowned, unconsciously slowing slightly. Shadow matched his pace, listening. "...You were working with Doctor Robotnik then. He had you activate a weapon for him, the Eclipse Cannon. But... then the colony went out of control. It would have crashed into Mobius if you and Sonic hadn't finished off the prototype Ultimate Life Form and used Chaos Control."

Well, there was yet another answer that raised more questions, and more things Shadow didn't quite recognise. Lucky for him Knuckles seemed ready to answer. "Who is Doctor Robotnik?"

"He's some kind of madman. He builds robots, and he's tried to take over the world before." He paused, and Shadow thought he might have been mildly embarrassed. "When we first met after he crashed on my island, he tricked me into thinking Sonic was who I should be fighting." He shook his head.

"And Sonic? What's he like?"

"Sonic? Hm." Knuckles had to pause to think about that one. "He's too fast, never slows down. It's like everything is a game to him." Another pause. "He's a good person, though." In his tone, Shadow heard an added 'even if I have to admit it.' "...You ran into him earlier, didn't you?"

Shadow nodded. "There was a city being attacked, far to the west of here. We met briefly."

The echidna startled. "By those Black Arms?" he asked, Shadow nodding in answer.

"To be honest, it was their leader who sent me here. I ducked out of everything after I found the two Chaos Emeralds there, but he ran across me later." Again, Knuckles seemed mildly surprised by that, but didn't ask further questions: the Emerald was very close. Cresting a rise that might have once been a bridge, worn down and collapsed by the ages, they saw it at last, a red gem resting in the dried-out remains of a pool, balanced perfectly on one point. Shadow remembered the green Emerald doing the same thing when he'd found it in the city, and now remembered that wasn't all that unusual - Chaos Energy did strange things.

The hedgehog went down first, picking up the gem and looking into it, red-tinted reflections looking back at him from every facet. Three Emeralds of seven... almost halfway to the answers he was seeking. Some other half-remembered thoughts rose up; yes, Chaos Energy certainly did a lot of strange things, and he remembered he could make the jewels float around him if he felt like it. Shadow didn't question the knowledge too much; any memories he could get back were as precious, if not more, as the Emeralds themselves. Something did occur to him, though, and he looked up at Knuckles. "You knew it was here before I did."

"I did." A moment of silence passed before Knuckles remembered Shadow had lost his memory and continued. "I'm the guardian of the Master Emerald. I can sense it from a very long way off - it's still safe on Angel Island right now, and I feel it. The same goes for the Chaos Emeralds."

Shadow let the Emerald join the others, merged unused into his own life-energy, and straightened up. "The Black Arms leader wanted me to get all seven and bring them to him."

Knuckles' eyes widened. "After all this, and attacking a city - whatever he wants with them, it can't be good."

"Agreed. I'm still going to look for them... to get them before he does and keep them away from the Black Arms."

"That's a good idea. So, do you have any lead on the next one?"

Shadow thought about that, frowning. At length, he eventually had to shake his head. Knuckles hummed to himself, crossing his arms and looking into the sky, then held a hand out. "Let me borrow the ones you have. I can use them to find the next closet one, if it's in range."

He got a surprised blink for an initial response. Shadow obliged after a moment, handing all three over. Knuckles held them against his chest, eyes closed, expression blank. He furrowed his brow after a few seconds, and, shortly after, opened his eyes and offered the Emeralds back. "It's east-by-northeast, about thirty miles. It's moving, I think; someone must have it."

East-by-northeast. Thirty miles. Shadow nodded and took the Emeralds back. "...Do you think I could do that?"

"What, sense the Emeralds using the others?" Knuckles tilted his head. "...Maybe. If you can channel their energy to do Chaos Control... Just let the Emeralds guide you to the others - they attract each other, and if you can figure out which way the ones you have are pointing, it's pretty easy."

The advice sounded only just a little clearer than mud to Shadow. Clear as milky, carbonated water, perhaps. Still, he nodded. "Thanks, Knuckles. I'd better be on my way."

"We both need to be. I'm going to stay down here until this mess clears up a little - we'll probably meet again before it does. Either way, good luck."

"You, too."

And so they parted ways, Shadow trying to figure out which way the Chaos Energy was 'pointing', otherwise heading east-by-northeast as Knuckles had directed him. He stopped to look back at the ruins at the crest of particularly steep hill, admiring them now that he could get an overall view of them, and even caught sight of Knuckles leaping off an intact tower into a glide.

He really would have to come back once this nonsense was straightened out.


	4. Chapter 3: Memory

Shadow was frustrated.

He'd sort of got the hang of sensing where the Emeralds' energy was, to use Knuckles' metaphor, 'pointing', and he realised the Emerald he was seeking was on the move, but he couldn't make _sense_ of what that energy was pointing _at_. It seemed high up, really high up, like a bird had it. Or, perhaps, he was fooling himself and he couldn't actually sense the Chaos Emerald at all. He was hungry, too. He'd managed a decent diet in the forest he'd woken up in, living on what must have been forgotten survival lessons, but since the attack on Westopolis he'd had no chance to eat and barely more to rest; with the Emerald on the move, he couldn't divert his attention to anything else. The dully throbbing wound on his leg did absolutely nothing to help his mood, either.

The hedgehog had taken to talking to himself again, alone but for the wind in his ears. Or, as the case would have it, swearing to himself about damned Emeralds and damned Black Arms and damned amnesia. It helped vent his frustration, anyway, even if something in the back of his head said he should be embarrassed about such language. He glowered up at the sky again, fully expecting to see, once again, nothing but clouds, but a little speck caught his eye and made him focus. At last - a visual confirmation of what his energy-senses had been saying! It was a small aircraft of some kind, and the sight lent speed to tired muscles.

Shadow was eventually forced into a stop by the opening of a great canyon before him, just as the aircraft went into a sharp dive. It was definitely an aeroplane, painted blue and gold, tiny and very manoeuvrable: a great blessing in its favour as it pitched and swerved to avoid a volley of anti-aircraft fire in from the grey-and-orange buildings jammed into the other side of the canyon. He remembered the craft, dimly, the same way he'd remembered Knuckles. He could almost hear a young voice: "Tornado transformation!" He'd heard it while running, sound waves stretching away from him at the end of the second word, right before... right before... and the memory was gone again.

Meanwhile, the anti-aircraft cannons had won, it appeared, the plane damaged and falling at a low angle. The pilot, small, Mobian, orange, leapt to safety as his vehicle vanished into the canyon, the Chaos Emerald going with it. A fox. He was a fox, Shadow knew, had to have remembered: his current vantage point left him much too far away to tell. He stood, considering the situation for a little, and made his decision. The hedgehog descended into the chasm, seeking out the pilot, both to make sure he was uninjured and to mine him for information.

The cannons couldn't track him, his body presenting too small a target for their sensors, but he soon came to meet a squad of robots. That said, they were hardly any concern: though they were built well enough to balance and track a target, the lot were shoddily constructed out of questionable material, and they barely amounted to speed bumps as Shadow sought out the pilot fox. It was he who was found first, however, the fox flying-

_Flying?!_

-yes, incredibly, flying down to him by spinning his tail, shock all over his long-furred face. "Shadow?! You're alive!" He landed, and Shadow saw that in fact there were _two_ tails, absently flicking behind him in a drifting way, surely something unique he ought to remember but couldn't. They stared at one another several seconds; it was Shadow who broke the silence.

"You were with Sonic, weren't you?"

The fox tilted his head and frowned. "Well, yeah...?" His voice trailed up into a question from some slight sting of near-offence, as if he realised something wasn't quite right with the way Shadow had said it. Maybe it had come out wrong? Probably. Shadow was aware he didn't make a very good speaker at the best of times.

"Sorry. I don't remember much from before three weeks ago."

The fox startled, his tails briefly puffing up, fur settling down as he got his head around that. "Uh, okay. I'm Tails! Well, Miles Prower, really, but everyone calls me Tails."

Shadow nodded. "And it's safe to say you're not with those Black Arms, either, right?"

"No way! I was just hearing about them on the radio on my way over here... it's terrible. They've attacked all kinds of cities all over the place."

"They're after the Chaos Emeralds."

Tails jumped. "Then keeping them out of their hands has _got_ to be a good thing!" He looked along the canyon, roughly in the direction his plane had gone down. "The Cyclone - that's my plane - still has its Emerald in it..."

Shadow followed his gaze. "Then we should go after it."

"Uh-huh... But, you know... I was actually flying this way because I tapped into some military traffic. Apparently, this is a base where Eggman stores a lot of spare munitions and robots; the military were closing in on him right before all this broke out, and now it's even more important they get those supplies. The more robots and vehicles they can get on the battlefield, the fewer people who get hurt! We should help them out!"

Shadow looked at the young fox. He didn't think Tails would be able to stop him if he went after the Emerald, and guessed he probably knew it, too. Still, he was right that anything that helped against the Black Arms would be a good thing, even if helping GUN still tore at something in his heart. And, much like the ruins, it wasn't like the Chaos Emerald would be going anywhere. He nodded assent after a few moments' thought. He needed to ask something, however. "Who is Eggman?"

Tails gave him a confused look, then remembered. "Oh... his real name's Doctor Ivo Robotnik." _That_ Shadow recognised, at least the surname. "He's a genius," Tails continued, "but basically insane; he keeps on trying to take over the world. But Sonic and I have always stopped him!"

A mad doctor called Robotnik, just like Knuckles had said. Shadow nodded again, and Tails seemed happy. "Okay, so most of the facility seems to be that way." Shadow looked as Tails pointed, listening quietly. "We should make sure the area's clear of robots and that the doors are unlocked. C'mon!" Down he went into the canyon, Shadow following behind him, keeping up just fine despite his weariness and wounded leg.

The resistance was, in fact, pretty minimal as far as the robots were concerned; they had probably been mostly pulled to deal with the soldiers. Tails set himself to opening doors and disabling stationary defences, Shadow and his fighting ability not really doing much at first. The fox eventually flew over a silo, saying he'd be back and leaving Shadow by himself for a while. It was during this time that a little flying drone approached him, this one different from the Black Arms' leader's: it was a little bigger, mostly taken up by a screen and flying apparatuses. The hedgehog watched it approach with wary curiosity.

The screen flickered on, showing an image of the head and shoulders of a balding, fat human, carrying an enormous moustache above his lip that seemed to be doing its level best to compensate for his hair loss. The image was rough and full of static, the voice transmission not much better. "Ah, Shadow, there you are!"

For his part, the hedgehog could only show a confused frown. More people who remembered him, lost in his past. "And you are...?"

"Is this stupid thing working?!" The man reached offscreen and seemed to do something to the camera settings. The image got a little worse. "It's me, Doctor Eggman, the world's greatest scientific genius!" He seemed satisfied by Shadow's silent start, recognition finally coming to him. "That's better. Now, Shadow! GUN are trying to steal my robots and supplies away from me! How about you go out there and stop them?"

Shadow folded his arms. He remembered Eggman - real name Ivo Robotnik, Tails said, and he shared a surname with what the insurgency's leader called his maker - but he reminded the hedgehog of no one more than the Black Arms' leader. Knuckles and Tails, at least, had stopped to explain a little about what was going on, and neither had ordered him around. "They're doing it to stop the Black Arms."

"Those useless terrorists? I can do that myself!"

"You're not with them, then."

"Of course not!" Ivo snapped, offended at the very idea.

The Mobian mulled it over. Apart from everything else, too, both Knuckles and Tails had told him the man wasn't the best person to be helping. Ivo seemed to be getting a little impatient when Shadow abruptly made his answer known, jumping and spinning through the drone, cleaving it in two.

A while later, the door of the silo opened, Tails returning shortly after. "All done!" Seeing Shadow looking placidly at him with the broken pieces of machinery a few feet to his left, he tilted his head. "Did something happen?"

"Doctor Robotnik contacted me, asking for my help."

The fox startled. "...Well, you said no, right?"

Shadow gestured at the broken drone. "In a manner of speaking."

Tails laughed at that one, and he seemed a little relieved. "Way to go, Shadow!" The hedgehog smirked at that; much like in Westopolis, it felt good to be praised, really, and the violent method of getting his message across appealed to his sense of humour. Tails beckoned him, and they headed off again, further into the canyon.

Their path was forced into more or less a straight line by the narrow canyon, which was more a help than hindrance, with Tails still insisting on opening the silos and destroying the skeleton crew of robot guards. The base really wasn't built for anything that couldn't fly, and they soon came to an end in the platforms they'd been running along. There were more visible further on, but the gap wasn't jumpable. Shadow came to a stop at the edge, and was about to simply run over with jets aflare when Tails pointed out a pipe.

"Hey, Shadow! I bet you could grind across on that!"

Shadow looked and considered the idea. "...I could, couldn't I." He'd done it before, he knew that, remembering at last what riding with the wind back in the ruins had reminded him of. Taking a running start for momentum, he leapt onto the rail and grinded his way down: he _had_ done it before, for it both saved energy and was _fun_.

Tails laughed and looped back to take a running leap from the edge, twin tails taking over at the top of the jump and carrying him across. Shadow realised the fox would probably get there first if he himself didn't speed up. He didn't have to, but... some deep, deep instinct asserted itself, a competitive side he didn't know he had. He lowered his profile, speeding up just that little bit, leaping off the end of the pipes and landing on the other side, Tails a few seconds behind him.

The younger Mobian laughed again, having to run himself down to a stop. "You win!"

His smile was infectious, especially after the impromptu game: Shadow quirked a small smile himself. It gave way to another puzzled look after a few seconds. "Did we ever do that before?"

"What, race? No, but you did race Sonic, once."

"Hm." Thinking about it... "...It was on the ARK, wasn't it." And it felt a lot more serious than just a simple race.

Tails' memory of the event apparently agreed, sobering him some. "Yeah."

In his mind's ear, Shadow heard himself talking, a fragment of memory bubbling to the surface. _"You never cease to surprise me, blue hedgehog. I thought that capsule you were in exploded in space."_

_"You know, what can I say? I die hard!" _And that was Sonic responding.

"...We were fighting." Shadow crossed his arms and looked away. They _had_ been fighting. Why, then, did Knuckles' version of what had happened up there also make sense?

Tails was very serious, now. "That's right." He looked down, shuffled his tails a little, and looked back up, ears down slightly, sad, nervous. Hopeful. "It's a long story and I don't know how all of it happened. You started out on Eggman's side, after he let you out of stasis." Seeing that he had Shadow's attention again, the fox continued. "GUN were after you, and mistook Sonic for you. That's how we found out about it at first.

"You... you were going to give Eggman control of the Eclipse Cannon. It's a really powerful weapon built into the space colony ARK. -But, but that's not what happened. I mean, you gave Eggman the Eclipse Cannon and showed him how to use it, but then the ARK's dormant programs activated and it went out of control. We were locked out of the systems and it was going to crash into Mobius, with all seven of the Chaos Emeralds... wiping out everything. We had all had to work together to stop it... you came to help us at the last minute. You and Sonic... you saved everybody."

For a long several moments, Shadow didn't say anything, arms still crossed, albeit a little more loosely than before Tails had started talking. Somewhere between wary and nervous, he eventually asked, "Why was GUN after me?"

"Uh."

The silence stretched.

"...Fifty years ago, there was a project to create the ultimate life form... you. But something happened... I don't know what." He stopped, not sure how to say the rest of it, Shadow's unwavering gaze eventually pulling it out of him. "They shut down the colony, and kept you in stasis for fifty years, until Eggman let you out." He was really worried now, but Shadow could barely see that; though he was staring in Tails' direction, it wasn't really him he was seeing.

It was like a wall had come down. Shadow remembered everything, and the force of it knocked his mind over: they'd killed everyone, murdered them, mowed down his friends and what resembled family; he heard screams, he heard someone begging him to do something - he made a promise, he made a promise, what was it? It wasn't to fight them, wasn't to fight GUN, no matter that he dearly wanted to. He remembered the insurgency's leader's words, something about fifty years ago, even if Shadow himself had forgotten it.

Angry, confused, even a little frightened, Shadow had no idea how to deal with the sudden flood of conflicting emotions. With sharp, abrupt motion, he whirled into a spin to the right, leaving Tails' desperate yell of "Shadow!" to fall almost unheard behind him. His muddled thoughts zeroed in on his original, albeit vague, plan: get the Chaos Emerald, reveal the past, get out of the area and figure it out later.

The hedgehog charged through the base, uncaring what he ran into, GUN's robots and Ivo's equally trashed as they got in his way. Getting closer to the Emerald, he saw soldiers and managed to register them enough to avoid them, though uncomfortably closely. A vicious, angry part of his mind wanted nothing more than to obliterate them the same way he was the robots, but the frightened part, or maybe the one that said something about a promise though he didn't know what it was - that stayed him.

Rampaging in a nearly straight line, heedless of drops or other obstacles, it wasn't long at all before he came upon the Cyclone's crash site, the plane looking rather pathetic with its front half embedded inside one of the supply silos. The Emerald, he realised, was going to be in the nose, and he didn't question how he knew that. He had to circle around the outside of the silo before he spotted his way in - some kind of maintenance shaft or air duct. Shadow did a quick assessment of how he'd get up there, and decided on running clear up and around the side of the silo, a quick counterbalancing blast from his right jet getting him inside. It was maybe big enough for a human to walk around in, though the sides were still uncomfortably close.

Inside, the silo's supplies were arranged in a neat, orderly fashion, apart from where the plane had punched through it. The aircraft was painted with a twin-tailed logo, marked with notes about Prower Products, Tornado III, and some other things Shadow didn't actually care about as he made his way over to it, landing carefully in the cockpit. The Emerald was right _there_, held into the nosecone with some kind of obviously durable material. Shadow pondered over the controls for a little. There was a lever labelled "LOCK" that, when pulled, seemed to have something to do with the nosecone, but it took a few minutes of fiddling before he figured out how to actually swing it open, a combination of holding down a latch and pulling the lever, resulting in a snap-click at the front.

Shadow carefully climbed out of the cockpit, the plane wavering under his weight, but he'd done it: the nosecone was open and the Emerald was his. He collected the gem, looked at it, and suddenly felt absolutely exhausted, several days of stress and confusion combined with the day's regained memories hitting him like a meteor. He put the Emerald away with the others, and after getting himself to a catwalk, made an attempt to get a direction on the other one, but... it simply felt strange, stretched out, diffused and oh, he couldn't make sense of it, not right then, cut off from his own focus by a massive yawn.

Resigning himself to his own body's limitations, Shadow left the silo and limped to speed, where he let his jets take over to run in an increasingly erratic path out of the base, eventually dropping down at the base of a tree.

The Emeralds, and hopefully his memories, would still be there after he'd got some much-needed rest.


	5. Chapter 4: The Right Thing

Light.

Darkness.

Sound. Muffled, incomprehensible.

Warm. Supported, floating, light and sound and darkness - dreaming the dreams of the blind.

Then it tilted, then he was heavy, something pressing on his back. Louder sounds, brighter light. He was cold.

A pattern of sound, didn't make sense at first, and then... words, he understood it. "Brainwave activity is increasing - I think he's waking up!"

He opened his eyes and there they were. Humans, everywhere, watching him behind computers, two of them standing in front of him. He sat up, dizzy and new. One was older, carrying an unruly fluff of grey hair under his nose - moustache, that was called a moustache. The other one was a girl, much younger, with blonde hair. They both smiled, and the older one spoke.

"Good morning, Shadow."

He blinked, turned over the meaning in his head, and answered: "Good morning?"

The room cheered - it startled him, and he looked around with the puzzled newness of small children and baby animals.

"Look, Dad!" said someone else, up in the higher parts of the room. "Look, he really talked!"

Was it strange he could talk?

Shadow - that was probably his name, right? - got up, the dizziness passing, though he still felt unaccountably heavy. The old man and young girl were joined by a third person, a woman; the adults looked him over, got him to walk a few laps around the room, then guided him somewhere. He was tired, and they said this was where he could sleep again, something he gladly did, stretched out completely unconcerned on the fold-down bed.

Everything was safe.

He woke up and was upside-down, then leftside up, then downside he didn't know where. Altered gravity, no gravity, racing nothing but himself and having a great time, Chaos Control!

He was beating his numbers daily, the speed ones and the ones measuring amount of Chaos Energy he could safely control and utilise alike, and his family were so proud, even if it mostly consisted of the professor and his granddaughter.

Brutus wanted to try it - not the Chaos trials, he knew he couldn't do those, not sensitive to it like Shadow. He wanted to try zero-g, altered-g. "No," Gerald said, "No," Henry said, "no, you're too little. Even if Shadow _is_ shorter than you are."

Two eyes, two colours. "It's called _heterochroma iridum_."

"It just rolls right off your tongue," Maria said.

Brutus agreed. He was younger than Maria, initially more shy than she'd ever been around the hedgehog and never quite so much Shadow's constant companion, but they'd made friends. "Where'd you learn it?"

Shadow just knew, the same as he knew what a waterfall was before even seeing a picture, let alone standing at one.

They left, and Shadow got curious about where the recycled air was coming from. He'd got lost in the vents and it worried everyone, Maria and Gerald especially. He was sorry, but he got out okay, he was fine. He felt like some time passed, and the ARK's halls filled with blood.

He was running through it, she was running through it. There was a loud bang and it was flowing down her side - and he was helpless, completely helpless, trapped in glass.

It was killing her. He wouldn't be with her, no one would be: she'd locked the soldiers on the other side of a thick door. They were trying to break it down.

He wanted to kill them. Rip them to pieces. He wanted _their_ blood on his spines, invisible against his stripes. Down he fell, down down down into a black hole, where not even swiftest light could escape. The capsule imploded around him, trapping him, and he couldn't see or hear. Hunger - pain - dark - cold.

Shadow came out the other side, free of the capsule and of madness. He was silver and he was flying with nothing between him and empty space and you're not supposed to be able to do that: it was the Chaos Emeralds, all seven, all power.

Sonic. Gold, not blue.

They were fighting a monster and its head was Gerald's, raving against the world.

How did he forget? How could he face it?

He fell again.

It rained.

He fell, it rained, he was the rain, a silver drop. He'd let go of the power before he hit, and it would end.

He splashed.

But he did not end.

He stood up, shook the wet from his fur. Raining and storms and he'd kill them, _he'd kill them_, the murderers, they were coming in a car, brakes squealing and something was far too close to him - Shadow woke up, on his feet before he was completely out of the dream, glaring into the darkness, glaring at... at...

At a blue hedgehog, who had obviously just skid to a stop in front of him, and who was regarding him with amusement. Shadow blinked, slowly, blearily. "You again."

Sonic grinned. "Nice to see you, too."

"Mm." He swallowed a yawn, watching as Sonic leaned back and scratched his shoulder on a tree.

"What're you doing out here?" With no answer given to him, he took a second look over Shadow, evidently noticing his bandaged leg. "Huh? Looks like you missed a dodge. That's not like you, Shadow."

"Is it not?"

Sonic blinked, straightening up. "No!" He stepped forward, into Shadow's rather wide personal space, and the darker hedgehog stepped to the side to get it back, leaving the tree. "Are you okay? What's going on, Shadow?"

It was getting there, especially as Shadow was thinking about the dreams he'd had, but... "I don't remember. Not enough."

Sonic considered that one briefly. "Remember when we met in that forest?" He grinned, a less broad one than when he'd woken Shadow up. "Faker."

That tripped some memories. Shadow gave him a slightly odd look. "GUN thought you were me."

"Heh heh, that's right! Pretty dumb of them, huh." Sonic shrugged idly, as if saying the military's business was theirs, none of his concern.

"I guess." He felt it was a bit more sinister than that, for some reason he still couldn't get at. "...We saved everyone together."

"Yep! I've never fought with someone like that before."

"What did we _fight?_"

That seemed to catch Sonic off-guard a little. "That crazy lizard-thing!"

Shadow rubbed his head, and in a little, it came back to him: the prototype Ultimate Life Form. He didn't say anything, still trying to sort the concepts into a timeline, and Sonic continued.

"Do you remember? We used the Chaos Emeralds together!"

"I'd never done that before." Shadow paused. "And you learned Chaos Control-" he looked back up at Sonic, remembering again how impressive it was, "with a _fake_ Emerald."

There was that grin again, cocky and satisfied with himself. "Uh-huh! Heheh, I can't believe Eggman thought he'd get rid of me _that_ easily!"

He managed to get a small smile out of Shadow for that one. The black hedgehog looked upward, spotting the remnants of the moon through the trees. He'd done that. Or Ivo had, anyway, but he'd shown him how and came up with the idea. "...It's been about three weeks since then, right?"

"Yeah."

"I wonder what the Black Arms are planning."

Sonic looked up as well. "I dunno... man, and I thought Eggman was crazy. Whatever it is, though, I'm gonna stop 'em!"

"That seems like the best path."

"You're coming too, huh?"

Shadow nodded. He still didn't trust GUN, but he trusted the Black Arms even less. No matter what their leader did know about his past, they were going to cut through the country and probably the rest of Mobius to get their way. Besides, he was starting to make friends among the rest of the people he'd saved the world with: Knuckles had a good head on his shoulders, Tails was intelligent and friendly, and Sonic-

"Woo-hoo! All _right!_"

...Sonic was pleasantly irritating.

"Tails said GUN were worried about them heading up into space, and I guess Eggman has a rocket in whatever base Tails is in."

"I see. Then you were looking for it."

"Well, mostly I was looking for Tails. He can fly it better than I can, and he can _definitely_ fly it better than Knuckles!"

Shadow felt he was missing some kind of joke, but then again, Sonic seemed to take life in general as a joke. He pointed in the direction he'd come from. "The base is that way. The doctor shot his plane down." And... Shadow may have stolen his Chaos Emerald.

Just for a moment, Sonic's expression flickered with worry before settling back into what seemed to be his usual carefree attitude. "Old Eggman again, huh? I guess Tails should be more careful with his planes! Well, come on: let's go before we miss all the fun! Race you!" And having said that, he was off like a shot, Shadow surprised into following.

With his leg still stiff, Shadow didn't really feel like racing, and Sonic didn't really seem to care, staying just far enough ahead that he was presumably winning the race in his own mind. Or he would have been, but Shadow saw him suddenly break away to leap from a rock formation, spinning and twisting in the air, not so much showing off as having fun. Shadow briefly pulled even with him, not quite sure if he should be amused or roll his eyes. He got a grin off Sonic before the blue hedgehog pulled ahead again, and, at two well-placed trees ahead, rebounded from one to the other to get himself some not-unimpressive height.

It was in this way, Sonic stunting with his sheer boundless energy and Shadow mildly amused by watching him, that they came to the canyon, Sonic ahead. He'd apparently realised Shadow wasn't up to speed and didn't bring up the race again, skidding to a stop and ending up right at the edge of the cliff. "Well, found it! Now, where did Tails say he was?"

Shadow slowed to a stop behind him, staying away from the edge a little. He pointed at the silo where he'd stolen the Chaos Emerald. "His plane crashed over there."

"Huh. I think he said he was further along, but let's go look! We need to get down there anyway!" Sonic backed away from the edge and barrelled forward, leaping onto the silo's roof, Shadow close behind and relying on his jets to make the same jump. There was only a hole where the aeroplane had been the evening before, if anything bigger than what Shadow remembered.

"Okay, there's the hole!" Sonic charged into it and emerged from the silo's actual entrance in the space of a few seconds. "But no plane. Guess he must have moved it!" He cast out to look for signs of Tails, Shadow running down the silo to do the same.

He couldn't find the fox yet, but did notice a soldier standing guard at the entrance to a building in the lower part of the canyon, and stopped to watch him. The soldier didn't notice himself being watched in the early light of dawn, but then, he wasn't looking up or over his shoulder. Sonic noticed Shadow looking at something and came to see what it was.

"Oh, hey, a soldier. Guess they must've already cleared the base out."

"I guess so." Shadow shook his head. "Any sign of him?"

"Nope! So c'mon!" And he was off again. Shadow trailed along behind him, again keeping to a more or less straight path as Sonic weaved around it, running up sheer walls and grinding over pipes. Some of it was justified - after all, he couldn't simply run over empty air like Shadow - but once again he mostly seemed to be doing it for the sheer joy of it. They made it to the wider mouth of the canyon, more a valley now, with a few large free-standing buildings. Sonic snapped out a finger to point at a badly battered little blue aeroplane near one of them.

"Hey, that looks like the Cyclone!" He charged for it, and though Shadow hesitated a moment, he followed. Getting to the building, Sonic called, "Tails! Tails? Hm..." He entered the building, and Shadow detected a note of excited relief entering the blue hedgehog's voice. "Tails!"

"Hey, Sonic." Tails' voice, on the other hand, sounded tired and a little down.

"Heh, looks like you finished off Eggman's robots without me!"

Shadow stood outside the building, hesitating again. What he'd done the previous night was wrong, he thought, even if he was trying to get the Chaos Emeralds, and even if he had been overtired and overstimulated with memory. Making a decision, he let the white Emerald come out and entered the building. Tails didn't immediately notice him, since he was standing side-on to the door.

"Well, not on my own... The military's already starting to take supplies out of the canyon. Hopefully it'll help them fight off the Black Arms..."

Shadow cleared his throat, calling attention to himself; Tails' head snapped around to look at him. "Shadow?!"

The dark hedgehog shifted his weight from side to side, feeling awkward. "...I'm sorry."

Tails looked down. "It's okay. ...I'm sorry, too. I didn't really know what else to do; I had to tell you the truth, since otherwise I'd just have been tricking you into working with me, but... I should've found a better way to do it."

Sonic, out of the loop, could only watch, looking a little confused. Shadow acknowledged Tails' apology with a nod and a quiet noise. "...Do you want this back?" he asked, holding out the Chaos Emerald. Some part of him rebelled at the thought - he needed all of them! - but the greater part thought it the right thing to do.

The fox looked up, then approached, smiling a little again. "I'll use it to find the others." He took the Emerald off Shadow, continuing with, "The Cyclone's Emerald detector should work as long as I can give it power, and I need to take a break from the diagnostics I was running anyway. After that, though... you and Sonic should probably take them. You might need them, and it'll take too long to repair the Cyclone for me to use them much." He cast a sad look at the entryway; that plane was obviously his pride and joy.

Shadow nodded, still feeling quiet and a little unsure of himself. "All right."

Tails looked him up and down, focusing on his bandaged leg for a moment. "...Come with me?" he asked, walking for the door, the two hedgehogs following as he led them to the downed plane. He put the Emerald back in its spot on the nosecone, then jumped onto the edge of the cockpit, pulling the pilot's seat forward and producing a box of some kind.

"Hey, Sonic, catch!" Tails tossed the box over his shoulder, and Sonic zipped to one side and caught it easily. He opened it as Tails was coming back from the plane holding a second box.

"Hey, you packed food?"

Shadow abruptly realised he hadn't eaten in two days and couldn't help looking extremely interested.

"I always do on long flights," Tails answered, "just in case!" Seeing Shadow's expression, he went on, "You and Shadow can have some if you want. I'm not really hungry."

Sonic rummaged through the lunchbox a little and settled on a sandwich. "You sure pack a boring lunch when I'm not around!"

"Not enough to stop you eating it..."

"Hey, I gotta keep up my strength, here." He passed the box to Shadow, who for his part took two sandwiches, an apple, and an orange before giving the lunchbox back to Tails. The fox smiled and thanked him, but Shadow was already wolfing down the first sandwich; a little undignified, maybe, but for the moment he didn't really care.

While the hedgehogs ate, Tails jumped back into the Cyclone's cockpit, working on getting the Emerald detector working. Shadow finished a little after Sonic, who'd been watching with that typical mildly-amused-at-everything look of his.

"I guess that wasn't so bad, huh?"

Shadow nodded, attention turning to Tails as he jumped down from the plane, picking up his second box. Shadow only now noticed it had the symbol for an international medical organisation on it, and guessed it was probably a first aid kit.

"I've almost got the Emerald detector working again," said Tails. "It just needs a little more work." He paused, looking Shadow up and down again, once more focusing on his wrapped leg. "Shadow... do you want me to take a look at your leg?"

The bandage _was_ looking a little scruffy, not changed since he'd left the ruins behind, and the wound appeared to have been bleeding again at some point. Someone, Shadow reasoned as he looked at his right leg, probably should look it over - he didn't much like the thought of being touched, but he'd just have to deal with it. Better Tails than a military doctor, experience or no. "All right."

Tails directed him to sit down and switched his usual gloves for sterile, plastic ones before removing Shadow's old bandage. He pulled a face at the injury. "You've been running around a lot, haven't you. You're as bad as Sonic."

"Hey!"

The black hedgehog looked to his left and held still beyond some involuntary twitching as Tails cleaned out the wound, using some combination of water and antiseptic. "The Black Arms haven't exactly given me many chances to rest."

"I guess not. Where'd you first run into them, anyway?"

"Outside the city where I first met Sonic."

"Westopolis?" cut in Sonic. "Yeah, I remember! I think that was the first major place they attacked, too! It's lucky I was around."

Shadow raised a brow at him, and Sonic looked back with an expression Shadow couldn't actually read. Perhaps the blue one himself didn't really know what to make of their first encounter, but he also seemed willing to let bygones be bygones, even if they were only two days ago. Shadow glanced back at Tails, still not looking too closely at his injury. "Their leader contacted me with a drone."

Tails pricked up his ears, surprised. "What did he want? ...Is that how you found out they were after the Chaos Emeralds?"

Shadow nodded, hesitating before going on. "And, at first, I was helping him," he admitted. Tails had been honest with him, after all.

The fox jumped, looking up at Shadow in shock for an instant. "...I guess you didn't remember anything, huh."

Shadow shook his head. He felt Tails start rewrapping the wound, and after a little, the fox sat back.

"That should do it," Tails said. "Just try not to run around too much."

Shadow stood, testing the leg. He still wasn't up to putting full weight on it, and it ached some from having it cleaned out and rebandaged tighter than he'd done on his own, but it did feel better than two days previous. Tails removed the plastic gloves and stood as well. He and Shadow looked at each other for a moment; Tails spoke first, quietly.

"Thanks for coming back, Shadow. And thanks for giving back the Emerald."

"Thank you for having me back."

Awkward or not, they both meant it. Tails smiled, gave Shadow a thumbs up, and made his way back to his downed aeroplane, where he put away the medical kit under the seat and got back to work on the Emerald detector. Shadow sat back down, resting, and Sonic looked briefly disappointed about something as he watched the other hedgehog. Ever on the move, he shrugged it off and wandered aimlessly around the cliffside, burning energy. After a little, he turned toward the Cyclone.

"So, Tails, when's that rocket you found gonna be ready?"

"At least another day."

"What?! A whole _day_? Can't you speed it up?"

The young mechanic seemed more amused than anything, clearly used to Sonic's antics. "I _did_ speed it up, Sonic. It should have a whole two weeks, minimum, of preflight checks and tests. If you ask me to cut any more corners, it'll just blow up in the hanger!"

"Probably still safer than Knuckles flying it."

The fox laughed, and Shadow frowned.

"When did he fly one before?" he asked.

"On our way up to the ARK!" Sonic replied, and Tails continued for him.

"One of the asteroids drifting around hit the shuttle. It didn't hurt anything critical, and we were already inside the colony's atmosphere field, but it _did _damage the cargo bay's locking mechanism."

"Knuckles had the pieces of the Master Emerald in there. When the doors opened, he went totally nuts and started grabbing the controls!"

Shadow considered that. He didn't remember that incident - he hadn't been there, he felt fairly certain, their landing happening before he'd switched sides - but... he did recall something else. "That explains the crash."

Tails' ears and tails drooped at the memory. "Yeah..."

"Heh, we made it through, though." Sonic had no such remembered terror as Tails evidently did, grinning in the face of the past.

"That you did."

The conversation paused briefly; it was, again, Sonic who kept it going. "You know, I had no idea anything that big was up there before!"

Tails sighed. "Sonic..."

"What?"

"It's the most advanced space station _ever built._"

Sonic shrugged at that. Shadow guessed space stations and the like were more up Tails' alley; he was clearly a mechanic through and through. Still, something about that puzzled him, and he spoke up. "It's been more than fifty years." Surely there would have been a lot of advancements in technology since Professor Robotnik's heyday?

"Yeah," Tails answered, "but there hasn't been as much interest in space travel or space-based research for a long time."

"Except for Eggman!" interjected Sonic.

"I don't really think he counts. Besides, the Death Egg wasn't anywhere near as advanced as the ARK. Or as big."

And they'd lost Shadow again. "Death Egg?"

Sonic leapt to explain. "Back when we first started fighting him, Eggman built this massive space station! Heh heh, it looked just like his head!"

"It wasn't really _that_ massive, not compared to the ARK," Tails said. "After we damaged it and knocked it out of orbit, it crashed on Angel Island." Realisation dawned on his face. "You know, I think we're all really lucky it did. Angel Island hitting the ocean did a lot of damage on the coast, but if it hadn't been there to take the impact, the Death Egg crashing could've done a lot more."

"Whoa, really? Man, I guess we _were_ lucky!"

A memory bubbled its way up and burst against Shadow's consciousness. He was on the ARK, somehow, with Gerald. How he'd got there he didn't recall knowing or caring. The professor was going over his plans - his calculations, comparing the colony to asteroids that had caused prehistoric mass extinctions. Shadow didn't remember the numbers: they weren't as important as their _effects_, and on this he trusted Gerald.

He shook his head. "Yes, you were."

"I never realised just how lucky before now..."

Sonic looked back and forth between Tails and Shadow, both quiet and maybe a little horrified, and loudly changed the subject. "Anyway, that's actually how we first met Knuckles! We heard stories about this weird island, and when we went to check it out, we found him on it!"

Tails looked up at him and was quiet for a moment before commenting. "He took you completely by surprise, too."

"Yeah, yeah..." At Shadow's curious look, he continued. "I was using the Chaos Emeralds to race Tails and the Tornado over the ocean!"

"I don't know what he did, but whatever it was, it was enough to get the Chaos Emeralds off Sonic, even though he was charged up at the time!"

"I gotta admit, he's pretty strong!"

Shadow was startled. Getting the Emeralds off someone in Super form? That _was _impressive. "I actually met him on the way over here."

"Oh yeah? What was he up to?" Sonic asked. "He doesn't usually come down here without a good reason. Did the Black Arms go after the Master Emerald or something?"

"Not that I know of. He was trying to stop them from activating some ancient temples; they turned one on and it caused a wind storm." Sonic and Tails took their turn looking startled, prompting Shadow to continue. "I helped him defend the others and deactivate that one."

"Heh, good for you!" Sonic grinned and gave Shadow a thumbs up. Shadow couldn't help but smile a little at that: it had been a pretty stressful few days, and Sonic's spirit could be pretty contagious, he was finding. With the conversation taking a positive turn, Sonic was actually quiet for a little; it was Tails, this time, who continued them.

"I guess I'd better get back to fixing the Emerald detector. The self-checks on the rocket should be finished in an hour or so, and I think I'll know where the other Chaos Emeralds are by then."

"An hour, huh?" Sonic leaned over the railing at the edge of the cliff. "I guess I'll take another look around!"

"A _day_, Sonic, this is just one set of tests."

"I'm _definitely _going for a run around here!" He turned toward his fellow hedgehog. "Shadow? You coming or staying?"

Shadow rose to his feet. "I suppose it wouldn't hurt to look around a little." His leg was feeling better for the rest, but he looked up at Tails for confirmation.

The fox nodded. "I guess not. Just try not to stress yourself; if Sonic wants to race, don't listen to him!"

"Aw, Tails!"

Sonic's not-actually-bothered whine got a chuckle out of Shadow. "Sound advice."

Tails grinned broadly. "Like I said, the shuttle should be ready tomorrow morning. You'll come back before then, right?"

Sonic grinned back at him. "Of course! Heh, I bet I could get to the nearest town and back by then!"

Agreeing to that, Shadow nodded. He raised an arm to Tails in farewell and followed Sonic back out into the rest of the base. For his part, the uninjured hedgehog was keeping to what was for him a reasonable pace, happy in the simple motion of running and without any particular aim beyond exploration, and Shadow was content to follow in his wake. After a while, Sonic spoke up.

"You know, if Tails didn't get rid of all the robots, they might cause trouble for him later! The military, too, I guess. Let's see if they missed any!"

At this, he darted into a building that didn't, to Shadow's eye, have anything in particular to mark it out, already trying to open a locked door as Shadow entered. "Aw man..." Sonic knocked on the door, ears twitching slightly at the sound. Shadow tried another one opposite him, this one also locked, then set about looking for a terminal. Ah, there: over at the end of the hall. He waved Sonic over.

"Any idea what the password might be?"

"Hmm... I don't know. Genius? Robotnik?" Sonic shrugged. "Eggman's always had a big head!"

Shadow blinked at him. That, coming from Sonic?

Still, he tried both of them. The first was clearly wrong, the computer responding with a harsh bleep that made both Mobians twitch their ears back, but the second... the second was familiar, digging at one of the shrinking blank spots in Shadow's memory, and the computer accepted it, all the hall's doors obediently flying open.

"Whoa! Nice work!"

Shadow scratched his head. "That was the same password he used in the pyramid base." Why hadn't he changed his passwords? That was kind of odd.

"Yeah? Huh. Well, c'mon, let's see what's in these puppies!"

Sonic darted off, Shadow following a few paces behind. As they entered the closest room, they spotted a squadron of robots booting up. Thrilled, Sonic shouted "Whoa! Just in time!" and set about laying into them, spinning through the air at speeds only Shadow had any chance of following unaided, and he himself took on the job of clearing the other half of the room.

Like the ones from outside, most of these robots were hastily-built, mass-produced things that would have been easily destroyed even if the pair of them weren't as fast and energy-rich as they were. In the back, though, Shadow found himself swerving awkwardly through a somewhat tougher robot's frame to avoid hitting what looked like a very confused rabbit. As he tore through more of these stronger ones, he realised they all had animals in them, all small and non-Mobian: not sapient, no, but why would a bunch of robots have little creatures inside?

Once the room was cleared, Shadow knelt beside a blue flicky bird. "What in the world?"

The flicky chirped at him, and Sonic looked over. "Oh, the animals?" He approached, scooping up a rabbit, quite possibly the same one Shadow had freed. "Eggman uses them to power some of his robots." Carefree Sonic or not, even he seemed a little disapproving. Shadow frowned.

"...That's not right. Should we do anything with them?"

"Hmm. Well, we're pretty high up here. The birds can take care of themselves, but maybe we can take the others down to the base of the cliffs or something? They're all wild, I think."

A small rat apparently decided Shadow would make a good perch and scurried up his shoulder, startling him. Looking at it, Shadow answered, "That's a good idea."

"Okay! Let's help these little guys!" He shifted the rabbit he was holding under one arm and went after another, and Shadow picked up a small pig of some species, leaving the rat to ride along on its perch on his shoulder. It would take a few runs, but who cared? It was the right thing to do.


	6. Chapter 5: Mad Doctor's Matrix

Shadow stopped. He could feel that weird Emerald again: spread out in exactly the way Chaos Emeralds shouldn't be, diffused more or less evenly around the walls and ceiling surrounding him. It wasn't natural - even the loose Chaos Energy in the air tended to collect in small rings and hoops, all but visible to those sensitive to it. Sonic noticed him missing and came back around the corner.

"Hey, Shadow, you okay?"

"Sonic, do you feel that?"

"Eh? Feel what?"

"It's like a Chaos Emerald, but spread out."

Sonic actually stood still, closing his eyes to concentrate. They popped open again a few seconds later. "Hey, you're right! Good going!"

Shadow rotated his ears this way and that, as if he could hear the energy. It was a little hard to track, to say the least, but concentrating on it, the energy did seem to be vaguely centralised somewhere. "Let's go find it," he said, leading Sonic along through the base. With both of them following their energy-senses, they eventually came to a large door, closed and leading to what had to be the central control room. To their surprise, the door was unlocked, and stepping through, they saw three fellow Mobians.

One was a bee, as small and frail as others of his kind, a second was a chameleon in what was probably his typical colour - purple - and a fighting stance, and the last and largest was a crocodile. It was the latter who spoke first.

"Well, well, if it isn't Sonic and Shadow!"

Sonic spoke up to respond, and Shadow was happy to let him. He didn't remember this trio at all. "Hey, who are you guys?"

"We're the Chaotix: a crack team of detectives!" the crocodile boasted. "I'm Vector."

The chameleon nodded at them. "Espio."

"I'm Charmy!" the bee finished, doing a quick loop in the air. Espio took a seat at the central computer, puzzling over the keyboard.

Sonic grinned and approached them, Shadow staying close. "Heh, what're you doing here?"

Vector, evidently their leader or at least the spokescroc, answered for them. "We're on a case, of course! We need to hack into Eggman's computer - and don't ask why!"

Charmy landed lightly on the right arm of Espio's chair; it seemed built for a human and much too tall for the lizard. "Espio's not having any luck, though!"

"Data retrieval isn't exactly my speciality."

Shadow pricked his ears. "Well, what a coincidence. I'd like to know what the good doctor was up to here, myself. Try 'Robotnik' for the password."

Charmy tapped Espio's crest. "Told you you should've let me try!"

Vector shoved him lightly, just enough to put him off balance and force him to fly off the chair. "Quit buggin' him, Charmy!"

Espio, meanwhile, sighed and tried Shadow's suggestion, with an air of having tried everything else. To his and Vector's surprise, it actually worked: the platform behind the terminal activated and a ball of yellow light faded into existence. "But it can't be that obvious...!"

Shadow shrugged. "He used the same password in a previous base of his."

"His security is terrible," Espio concluded, mildly disgusted. Whether it was at the doctor's poor security or Charmy's smug look was hard to say.

"Well," said Vector, "You know what to do."

"Roger that." The chameleon leapt easily to the platform, stepped into the ball of yellow light and... vanished.

Shadow blinked, confused, and looked at Sonic to see how he was reacting. He had his ears pricked up, but didn't seem at all alarmed. "Cool, I didn't know Eggman had one of these! You can get into the computer systems that way!"

That made sense. Kind of. Shadow looked at the light again. "...Sonic, what would a Chaos Emerald feel like if it was inside there?"

"Huh?" Sonic thought for a moment, then, with a jump, came to the same conclusion Shadow had been approaching. "Probably spread out over the computer systems!"

Shadow nodded to him, and before the others could react, leapt into the light after Espio. His world disintegrated around him into dazzling yellow: when he could see clearly again, he was just above the perfectly-smooth ground, dumbfounded by the narrow channels of light flowing all around him, like circuitry. He could feel the world around him in a way he wasn't entirely sure he understood, different from the energies of the real world beyond the portal behind him. He wasn't in any pain from his injured leg, either, cyberspace avatar based on his own self-image. The transfer process completed and set him on the glass-smooth floor, and Shadow took off hoverskating. He could sense the Emerald, at least, feeling the way it should, a beacon of concentrated Chaos Energy somewhere in the virtual distance. It wasn't long at all before he caught up to Espio, and he slowed down to talk to him. The chameleon nodded to acknowledge his arrival.

"Shadow. We need to be careful in here; if we're detected, we could lose the data we're after."

Well, after all, the Chaotix had helped him get in: the technology wasn't anything Shadow recognised, and he doubted he'd have thought of entering the computer systems to go after the Chaos Emerald. "I'll help you look for it. There's something in here I want, as well."

Espio nodded again, and they ran in silence until they came to what looked like a band of robots. Espio made a sharp hand motion at Shadow, stopping him from attacking. Keeping his voice low, he explained: "Those represent security programs. Let's not let them see us, shall we?"

Continuing on, they shortly came to what was, roughly speaking, a cliff, angling ninety degrees down to vanish in a virtual sea. Espio was obviously used to this, unawed by the sight; Shadow wasn't, taking a fascinated look around the weird computerscape. Circuitry lines angled sharply about in crazed patterns, going towards three towers in the distance, a fourth, taller one further away still. Shadow could just about pick out a path to each of the closer two. Blocking the paths at various points were forbidding red barriers, and over other points were odd-looking dark 'vehicles', floating and casting deep shadows over the lines.

"The data will be in those towers," Espio said, pointing. "They represent I/O nodes and memory banks."

"What are those barriers?"

"Firewalls."

"And those dark things?"

The chameleon squinted at one. "Hm. They don't really seem to fit the system. A virus, maybe?"

"Both things to avoid, then." Shadow stepped up to the edge of the cliff, just to one side of a circuitry line. He mentally followed his path through the maze, plotting, thinking...

"Follow me." Shadow touched his foot to the circuit and was whirled into it, speeding off at breakneck pace - though still one he could handle. Espio was close behind, following his movements as he dodged around the firewalls and virus segments, and they reached one of the near towers without incident, the circuit discharging them. At least Shadow's short-term memory was working properly.

"So what, exactly, are we looking for?"

"Segments of a data file. It'll be encrypted, but that doesn't matter; as long as I can put it together, we can decode it later." He started toward the towers stairs, but dropped to a combat stance after a few short steps. "What's that?"

Shadow looked and recognised a fast, unarmed little drone, purple and black with a spread-out propulsion system, a stylised eye no doubt painted around the camera and holoprojector on its opposite side. "That's a Black Arms drone - it's their leader's!"

"What? What are they doing here? ...This makes things harder. We'll have to be quick, before whatever they're up to sets off the alarm."

He got a nod from Shadow, and with Espio leading, they made their way carefully into the tower. Thankfully, the Black Arms didn't seem to be paying any mind to them, seemingly uninterested. They slipped by a few more of the security programs, shortly coming to a clear, cool firewall. Espio pointed past it.

"The data we need should be in there. Unfortunately, I think this is the only way in - stand back."

The chameleon rammed the firewall, shattering it; both he and Shadow tensed, waiting to see if the security programs noticed, but the two of them were still left unbothered.

The room beyond reminded Shadow of some kind of library. Espio walked up to a light in the centre of the room and glanced over his shoulder at the hedgehog. "Stand guard." With no further explanation, he stepped into the light and vanished somewhere.

Shadow waited quietly for him, wondering just where he'd heard the word 'library' before, and the lizard was back within minutes, holding what appeared to be one-third of a CD. "Found it." The 'CD fragment' vanished, and seeing Shadow's confused look, Espio explained further. "Since nothing really exists here, I can store things just like you would a Chaos Emerald."

"Oh."

Espio walked past him and gestured Shadow to follow. They were back at the base of the tower shortly, the way out about as tricky as the way in. Outside, the drone was gone, but it had left behind some... things. They looked like odd creatures, bipedal, largely black or at least dark grey, with red highlights that matched Shadow's stripes and the Black Arms' leader's striking hair. They seemed focused on the dark, slowly-moving patches of virus.

"Should we intercept them?" Shadow asked.

Espio thought about it. "It might help stop them from setting off the alarms. Of course, it will alert _them_ to our presence." He paused. "...They seem too interested in that virus. If it completes its objective, whatever it is, I think we'll be in trouble."

That was all the encouragement Shadow needed. He beckoned Espio with a head motion and charged at the virtual creatures, rebounding rapidly between two until they both vanished in a spray of polygons. Espio himself wasn't bad, either, using his long tail like a whip and his horn as a skewer. The creatures didn't react quite like people or robots, but getting the hang of their motions was easy enough, and they certainly weren't any more of a match for them than the doctor's off-the-shelf robots. With all of them destroyed, Shadow memorized another segment of the mazelike circuitry, and they were on their way to the second tower.

The second rush through the circuitry, Espio close behind, was as uneventful as the first. Arriving at the second tower, the Mobians saw the odd Black Arms programs engaging Doctor Robotnik's security: alien creatures and robots battling it out. The pair used the distraction to sneak by, and again Shadow stood guard while Espio retrieved the second third of the data file. He observed as Espio carefully fit the two pieces together, watched as they combined into one file with nary a crack, as if it had always been merely missing the last third, and got moving again as Espio put it away.

Outside, the floating spheres of the Black Arms program were getting closer and closer to what seemed to be critical junctions. Looking at them as he plotted their third path, Shadow asked, "Is there any way we can stop those?"

"I don't know. Either way, I don't think we should approach them on the circuit."

"Right." His third course planned, Shadow entered the matrix again, and for a third time his and Espio's path, though whirlwind and more convoluted than ever thanks to the virus, even diverting them onto an island with nothing on it but a few easily-dispatched Black Arms programs, proved more or less uneventful. The third tower was quiet, no activity around it, something that immediately set Espio on alert.

"Watch yourself as you approach," he cautioned, heeding his own advice with a low, slinking walk. His trained instincts proved completely correct: as they closed in on the tower's entrance, some kind of program erupted from the ground, looking like a giant worm with a gaping mouth in the Black Arms' colours: apparently they had already taken over the tower, explaining the silence.

The pair of them dodged in opposite directions, and Shadow feinted at the worm before running around in an attempt to get at its back; Espio ran counter-clockwise to Shadow, trying to do the same. The worm followed Shadow, shooting or spitting weird little winged missiles. The volley missed, sparking into blue and yellow as they hit the virtual ground.

"It's attempting to inject data packets - trying to disrupt our data. If too many hit, our own files could become corrupted- ack!" The worm had whirled on Espio, detecting his communication, and fired another set of data packet missiles; though Espio wasn't as fast as Shadow, he dodged the attack with reasonable ease. Whatever corrupting someone's files meant, Shadow surmised, it didn't exactly sound pleasant.

With the worm turned around, Shadow curled and slammed into its back, rebounding and seeing what he'd done. It was definitely injured, or damaged, whatever one could say about a program, 'bleeding' little drops of data-light that faded before hitting the 'ground'. The creature was already turning towards Shadow as virtual gravity took over, and he could see Espio sprinting forward for an attack run. Once the hedgehog landed, he held still just long enough to bait the program into firing more data packets before leaping clear, letting Espio ram it. It was in a sorry state now, flickering as it tracked the chameleon, and before it could take another shot, Shadow attacked again, this time finally doing enough damage to destroy the program, and he landed to see it dissolve into light, like the others.

They moved on, running into another of the worms on the way up the stairs; now with an idea of how to approach them, the fight ended just as strongly in their favour, and more quickly. Two more blocked their way, and it was a relief to reach the tower's centre. Espio stopped before entering to look for his last file piece.

"After this one, we'll need to leave by the tower we came in from. Otherwise we'll be returned to the real world at another access point, which could be anywhere."

"I'm getting the Chaos Emerald first."

Espio acknowledged that with a nod. "Very well. I'll go with you, but we'll need to get out before that virus gets into position." With that, he set off to look for the last piece. Shadow used the time while waiting to solidify the Emerald's position in his mental map - it was in or near that fourth tower he'd seen when they had first come in. Espio returned a little later, and Shadow gave him enough time to complete the file before he dashed off for the Emerald.

The Chaos Emerald, as it turned out, was actually behind the fourth tower, in a kind of courtyard. It appeared unguarded, but as Espio and Shadow walked closer, a bright yellow light appeared over the jewel, drawing it up into itself as the light formed a giant, humanoid robot before fading. In its cockpit was none other than Doctor Ivo Robotnik.

"Damn," grumbled Espio, "we've been detected!"

The doctor pointed at them. "Where do you think _you're_ going?"

"Taking that Emerald before you let the Black Arms get it," Shadow answered, calm and ready.

"No useless bunch of terrorists are taking my Chaos Emerald - and neither are you!" Ivo's mech took a ready stance.

"We'll see about that, Doctor."

Robotnik made the first move, firing a spiked ball from one of the robot's arms at the two Mobians, who darted off in opposite directions. Shadow ran in a circle around it, assessing potential weak points; the cockpit looked like a decent target, and he could sense the Chaos Emerald nestled safely in the back somewhere. No doubt that would be a bit more sturdy, but if he could get it, he wouldn't even need to stay and fight further: there was no way that robot would be able to chase him, surely? Thinking about it further, though, this was Robotnik's own system; who knew what the mech of his would be able to do here that the real world would never allow.

Shadow tested the shielding and metal on the back by ramming into it; it was pretty sturdy, all right, and he bounced off without doing much damage. Not much, but a little. He tore off again, and saw Espio trying to bait the doctor. Very well: Shadow was all right with attacking if Espio was running distraction.

As he circled around, intending to go for the cockpit this time, a smaller security program robot spawned directly in front of him, holding a large, cannon-like gun - a bazooka, Shadow realised - and the hedgehog simply crashed through it, barely thinking the motion through. More robots were spawning around the arena; Ivo laughed. "You know what they say: the more the merrier!" And with that said, he fired a missile volley, half aimed at each of his enemies. They were easy enough to dodge, however.

Taking a closer look, Shadow realised that the jump to the cockpit was at the very edge of his abilities; he would be able to reach it, sure, but he wasn't certain how much force he'd be able to put into the actual attack, most of his energy to be used just getting up there. There was the option of his jets, of course, but outright flight took more energy and was slower than jumping. As he crashed through another of the disposable security programs, however, he got an idea. The virtual robot was destroyed, yes, but its weapon was still usable.

Shadow turned sharply onto his own backtrack, hefted the bazooka over his shoulder into position, and fired as fast as the thing would empty itself at the back of Ivo's mech. It still felt a bit odd to be using, but didn't make him nearly as uncomfortable as that pistol had in the ruins. Doctor Robotnik was incensed, turning the mech around as quickly as he could - it was so big and unwieldy that Shadow emptied the gun and got moving again as the weapon disintegrated and Ivo shot the spiked ball at him.

"You - you little _rodent!_ You can't do that!"

"I just did, Doctor."

Espio, meanwhile, was making himself useful attacking the smaller robots; he had to have seen what Shadow was doing and got the idea. He made some kind of hand signal at Shadow and left the bazookas where they were; well-trained or not, they were evidently too heavy for him. Shadow picked one up and actually ran with it, which seemed to surprise the chameleon. Of course it did. Shadow felt an odd sense of self-awareness, dimly remembering that he was stronger than he looked; normal people didn't have to deal with his high-speed accelerations and decelerations.

The hedgehog got back into position behind the robot and fired off again, though he shortly had to get up and bolt to avoid another missile volley. The mech was spinning in place as fast as it could in an attempt to track him; it made Shadow's work harder, but nothing like impossible. The bazooka disintegrated as Shadow fired off the last of its ammunition, and the robot's back wasn't looking entirely structurally sound.

Spinning or not, there was absolutely no way Ivo's mech could keep up with an unencumbered Shadow; the hedgehog rammed the back of the robot again, this time feeling the metal give way and buckle. He landed, got a visual confirmation of the Chaos Emerald's location, and charged again, this time dislodging the gem and rolling away, coming up beside Espio and feeling rather pleased with himself as the robot lost balance and dropped to one side. The doctor was frantically pressing buttons and pulling levers inside his cockpit, but it wasn't doing any good; Shadow had to have broken some critical systems in it, and, in fact, it was slowly starting to dematerialise. Frustrated, the doctor slammed his fists into his control panel, a slightly odd motion with the robot's angle.

"Argh! This is impossible!" Ivo roared.

Espio cocked his head. "Hm. Your security is terrible, and your system is infested with viruses-"

"_WHAT?!_"

"The Black Arms got in here as easily as we did," Shadow explained. He looked at his fellow Mobian. "Speaking of which, we should get out of here."

Espio nodded, and addressed Ivo again. "You should get out of here, too, if you want to live. Quickly." He turned and ran off, Shadow following.

For the moment, Ivo was still trapped, but the robot would be dematerialised enough for him to escape soon enough. Still infuriated, he called "You'll pay for this!" after the retreating Mobians.


	7. Chapter 6: Big Changes

Shadow rematerialised in the control room access point in the same position he'd entered the computer systems, though facing the opposite direction. Although he'd tried to mentally prepare himself for having a gunshot wound again, he landed badly and tripped, turning it into a roll off the platform. Espio had to be right behind him; he heard him speak to the other Chaotix.

"Get the disk out, _now!_"

Shadow came out of the roll, weight off his injury, and saw Vector remove their disk, Charmy asking, "What's the big hurry, Espio?"

"There's some kind of virus. The system's about to crash - at best."

Sonic, meanwhile, was abruptly in front of Shadow. "Hey, Shadow! You okay?"

He got a smirk in response as Shadow held his newly-acquired Chaos Emerald out. "I'm fine."

"It _was_ an Emerald! Heheheh... Eggman's gonna be _mad_."

"He _was_ angry."

"He was in-" The computers cut Sonic off as the screens all blanked at once, every speaker in the control room emitting a harsh bleat. "What was that?"

"The virus," Espio explained. "Thanks for the help, Shadow."

Shadow nodded. "And thank you for yours."

Vector grinned a toothy grin and gestured with their CD, safe now in its case. "In any case, we should get back to base! We've got a lot of work to do!"

Shadow nodded. "Good luck with your case," he said, giving Sonic a confused look when the other hedgehog snickered. Sonic waved it off.

"That's a good idea, actually. Let's go back and see how Tails is doing!"

And, with a nod and a wave at the Chaotix, the two hedgehogs ran back through the base, Shadow slowed again by his real-world body as they returned to the platform with the broken Cyclone. Tails wasn't with it, likely inside working on the rocket. As the hedgehogs entered the building, they heard him talking through another doorway, and followed the sound of his voice.

Tails, as it turned out, was in a cavernous hangar with an odd-looking rocket, the vehicle pretty much all engine with a cockpit in the front. He was talking to a pink hedgehog; Shadow stopped, frowning. Was she familiar?

The fox noticed them and waved, prompting the pink one to turn around and look. "Sonic!" she called, and ran for them. She changed direction halfway there, heading for Shadow. "Shadow!"

Shadow abruptly realised he _did_ recognise her: she was the one from the ARK! She'd helped him remember Maria's true wish and - she was hugging him. Shadow stiffened, ears down, surprised.

"I _knew_ you had to still be alive!"

Sonic laughed.

The pink hedgehog kept up her tight hug for a few seconds before letting him go, grinning brightly. "I just knew it!"

Shadow lifted one ear, still off-balance, and smiled awkwardly. "Er. ...Er, I remember you." He let the other one up, and his expression became more solemn. "You talked to me on the ARK."

She nodded. "I asked you to help everyone, and you said you had a promise to keep..." She put her hands behind her back and smiled. "I'm really glad you're okay."

He smiled again, less awkwardly. "Thank you. ...I never caught your name?"

"Oh! I'm sorry! It's Amy - Amy Rose!"

Shadow nodded. Amy Rose, then - he'd remember it. Hopefully. He started making his way back to Sonic and Tails, and caught Sonic talking quietly to his younger friend. "Heh heh, wow, she's hardly said anything at all to me yet! Maybe I should tag her onto Shadow next time!" Tails stifled a chuckle.

Even though he had his good side to her, Amy noticed Shadow's limp fairly quickly and gasped. "You're hurt!"

Shadow glanced down at the bandages. "I'm recovering."

"I hope so..."

"He was recovering as fast as Sonic usually does," Tails explained. "I'm sure he'll be okay."

"How did you get out here, anyway?" asked Sonic.

"Oh, I asked the soldiers for a ride!" Amy answered, chirpy. "I knew I'd find you if I went with them!"

Sonic sighed. "Amy..." He really sounded more amused than anything, albeit tinted with resignation. Shadow sat down against the rocket and continued listening to them as Amy went on, speaking a bit more firmly.

"I want to do something to help!"

"...Fine, whatever." Sonic turned to Tails. "So, Tails, how's that rocket doing?"

Amy sighed, looking a little pouty, as the fox answered. "Everything checks out so far. And I found out where the other Chaos Emeralds are - you're not going to believe this! One of them's up on the ARK!"

"Whoa, no way!"

Tails nodded. "You and Shadow must've been so close to it that it recrystallised up there."

"Good thing we were headed that way anyway! What about the other one?"

"It's moving around, so I think either the Black Arms or GUN have it. I'm going to keep checking the detector to see where it's going."

"So we still have to stay here?"

"Uh-huh, at least if we want to get up to the ARK quickly."

"I'm all right with that," Shadow finally cut in.

Sonic shrugged. "I guess, if we have to." He started wandering again, leaning over the railing. "I gotta say, though, I'm surprised a place this big is so quiet."

Tails turned back to an open panel on the rocket. "Eggman was probably going to use the robots and supplies here for his last plan, but since he had to work with us, it didn't happen."

"That would explain it!" The blue hedgehog continued wandering about for a little before declaring, "I'm going to look around some more!"

"I'll come, too!"

"No way, Amy!"

Sonic ran off out the door, and though Amy tried to follow, there was no way she could keep up, and she stopped, disappointed. Shadow was amused.

"He never does stop moving, does he?"

"I wish he would, just once..."

She came back to the group as Shadow addressed the busy mechanic. "Tails? How did the Emerald here look on your detector?"

"Uh, sort of... spread out. It was in the computer, right?" Shadow nodded. "Yeah. I'd never seen an Emerald do that before, but that was the only thing I could think of."

"That was how Sonic and I felt it, too." He shook his head. "I've never heard of going into a computer like that before."

"You went in to get it, huh? It's a pretty new development; it wouldn't have been around fifty years ago."

Shadow nodded again. "There was a group calling themselves the Chaotix trying to hack in. They helped me get in there."

Tails blinked, surprised. "What were they after?"

"Some kind of information for a case they were working on," Shadow replied, shrugging.

"Huh... Did they find it?"

The striped hedgehog nodded, and Tails seemed thoughtful, going back to his work on the rocket. Amy spoke up after a few moments. "I've never been inside a computer before, either. What was it like?"

It took Shadow a little thought before he could answer. "Not all that different from the real world, really. That wasn't there," he said as he gestured at his injury, "and the energy felt a little different, but that's all. It was stranger to look at than feel, I guess."

"Oh?"

"There were circuits everywhere, and virtual robots. Espio - he's one of the Chaotix - said they represented security programs." He paused. "The Black Arms were in there, too."

Amy and Tails both jumped. "What were _they_ doing in there?" Amy asked.

"Planting a virus. It crashed the system right after Espio and I left it."

Tails snapped his fingers. "So _that's_ what that was! We're lucky I'd already isolated the rocket's systems, or that might've taken it out, too."

Shadow nodded, then frowned. "I wonder what they wanted with Ivo's computer."

"I don't know," Tails answered. "If they crashed it, they could've just wanted to take it the system down. Maybe they were afraid of him using his robots against them, too."

"He did seem ready to."

The fox gave him a noncommittal sound in response, distracted working on something on the shuttle's side. Amy spoke, looking a little puzzled. "Why are they doing this?"

Shadow shook his head. "I don't know. They mentioned something before about this country being built on violence, taking back what's theirs. Their leader seemed to know me, and he knew of Professor Gerald before I remembered him."

"Huh... so, maybe this was all stirred up by what happened on the ARK?" Tails asked. There was a beep from one of his tools, and with a satisfied nod, he decoupled it from the rocket. One more test down. "...But this is all really quick after it to not have been planned for a while. It's too well organised." He scratched his head. "And I don't know what they might mean about this country."

"I don't, either," said Shadow. He thought about what he knew for a minute. "Their leader was the first person who recognised me after I woke up. He said something about a day of reckoning being almost here, and told me to get the Chaos Emeralds." He paused for a heartbeat. "Get them 'as promised,' even."

"As promised?"

"But why would you promise those people anything?" Amy asked, still confused.

"I don't know." Shadow lowered his head, looking away. "There are still gaps in my memory. Maybe it was during one of those times."

"Maybe..." The pink hedgehog came closer as Tails wandered around to the other side of the rocket, still running his tests, and she stopped in front of Shadow. "...It's okay, though! I'm sure you'll work it out, Shadow!"

Shadow looked up at her and smiled a little. "I hope so. Thanks."

Amy smiled broadly and sat down across from him. "...So, what did he look like?"

"The Black Arms leader? Well, let me think. He's human, and he had red hair."

"Huh... y'mean, that kind of orange colour humans get sometimes?"

"No, _red_." Shadow held one hand to the opposite shoulder, showing off the red marking on his arm. "Like my stripes."

Amy blinked. "Huh. That's kind of weird."

"...It is, isn't it?" Shadow paused to think about that. "...He sounded a little different, too." A few seconds later, the concept he was looking for came back from his subconscious. "He had an accent, I mean."

"Huh... you know, on TV, a lot of the Black Arms did." Amy scratched her head. "Kind of Soleannan, maybe?"

Shadow shrugged and flicked an ear at the sound of Tails doing something on the other side of the rocket. "I just wish I knew what they were planning."

"Yeah, me too. If we knew what they wanted, it'd be a lot easier to know what to do." She twitched an ear at the door, though there wasn't anything there. "I mean, at least with Doctor Eggman, he's honest about it... they haven't even said anything." Amy leaned back some, and after a few moments, seemed thoughtful. At a quiet prompt from Shadow, she leaned in again, looking around. "Well, you said they told you something about the UF being built on violence, right? Maybe if I can get to the Internet from Tails' plane, I can find out what they were talking about?"

Shadow pricked up his ears. "That's a good idea."

"You think so?!" Amy grinned, extremely pleased. "Okay, I'll go look right now! I promise I'll find something!"

Shadow smiled back and shifted his weight to get up before thinking better of it and settling back down. His leg wasn't actually bothering him at the time, but as the previous evening had proven, he needed to rest as and when he could. Amy seemed to share the sentiment, gesturing for him to stay sitting.

"You just rest right there, and I'll be back once I've found something!" And she was gone, jogging merrily out the door to go on her search. Shadow quietly watched her leave, then leaned back against the rocket, thoughts wandering back over the last few days, and into the future. The next day would see them back on the ARK, his old home and where he'd made his stand before losing the better part of his memory. He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that, about going back to the colony's old corridors. The thought made him remember the dream he'd had the previous evening after stealing Tails' Chaos Emerald. With nothing better to do, his mind wandered through analysing it.

It had started out more-or-less literal memories. Despite the fog of his amnesia, he still remembered waking up for the first time: it hadn't been more than a few months from his own perspective, even though in reality it had happened fifty years previously. Maria and Gerald had been there, Gerald the head of the project Shadow was a part of and named after; little Brutus Tower with the different-coloured eyes had been with his father Henry, one of the biochemists on the team, and was the voice he remembered marvelling at the fact Shadow could already talk.

The boy had apologised for it about a week later, saying he thought it sounded a little mean. That had been when Maria brought him to visit Shadow in his room, still confined there as a sort of quarantine and not unhappy about it - he'd never known anything else, after all, and trusted Gerald's promise that he'd be allowed around the rest of the ARK eventually. That said, he hadn't held it against Brutus; he knew he was a little odd, being created and not born, and didn't make much of it beyond confidence in himself as the Ultimate Life Form. Gerald and the rest of the team certainly never did.

The black hedgehog yawned, trying not to let himself dwell too much on the latter part of his dream, more symbolic, incoherent, and frightening. Tails unknowingly made him jump by hammering something on the other side of the shuttle, but it was distracting enough that he was able to refocus. The next day, they would be back up there...

* * *

Shadow sat up straight, looking around for a slightly confused moment at the others, who had looked over at his motion. Evidently, he'd fallen asleep against the rocket. Amy was back, and so was Sonic; he called a cheerful, "Hey, Shadow!"

"Hello, Sonic," Shadow answered through a yawn. He got up and made his way over to the group, walking more evenly than he had been earlier.

Amy evidently noticed. "Feeling better?" Shadow nodded, and she responded, "Good!" with a cheerful smile.

"The rocket's still running diagnostics," Tails explained, "so there's not really a whole lot going on right now."

"I have something to tell you, though!"

Shadow blinked. "Did you find something?"

"I think so! Maybe." Amy linked her hands behind her back and scuffed the floor with one foot. "Fifty years ago, back when you were born, was when the Cold War was going on, between us and Soleanna." Sonic and Tails seemed surprised to hear this coming from Amy, and for her part she seemed a little smug. "There was very little real fighting, but, right after the ARK was shut down, they suddenly backed off! There's a lot of conspiracy theories around, so I don't know what happened for sure, but I think the reason they backed down has to have had something to do with what happened on the ARK, somehow!"

Tails frowned. "But the United Federation _built_ the ARK, Amy."

"I know that. But maybe we threatened them with the Eclipse Cannon or something? I'm not sure... but haven't you noticed most of those Black Arms guys have Soleannan accents?"

Sonic fidgeted. "Well, yeah, actually. I guess you're right about that."

"In any case, good find," Shadow said. He remembered being up there with Gerald, plotting. Well, mostly Gerald plotted; Shadow just agreed he could do what Gerald needed to take their vengeance on Mobius. He shook his head.

Amy grinned, supremely pleased. "Thanks!" Noticing Shadow's headshake, she looked concerned. "You okay?"

He waved it off, still thinking. "Fine. It's nothing." She and Tails started talking, but Shadow wasn't listening to them. What could the Black Arms have to do with the ARK being shut down, with GUN murdering the researchers and their families? What did they want with him? He didn't understand. Still chasing the thought in circles, he made his way for the door, the others watching.

"Shadow?" Amy called.

Absently, quietly, he responded with, "I need some air." He was outside shortly, where he sat near the cliff's edge. What was going on?

Why did the Black Arms' leader know him, and why did he want Shadow's help?

* * *

Several hours and the sunset later still found Shadow in a dreary, confused, frustrated mood, sitting outside and watching the stars and clouds. He heard someone walking up behind him; it proved to be Sonic. They greeted each other - Sonic with a "Hey, Shadow," Shadow with a nod - and the blue hedgehog took a seat beside the black one.

"Still thinking about the ARK?"

Shadow nodded again, looking back up at the stars.

"We'll be back up there tomorrow."

"So we will." After a pause, he pointed out something in the sky. "That wasn't there the last time I was down here."

Sonic looked. "Oh, hey! Tails was talking about that. It's some fifty-year comet."

"Oh?" Shadow asked, looking at Sonic.

"Uh-huh! Let's see, it's called, uh... Kayzee? Kayzed? Um, QR... eight... something something - anyway, it's this comet that only gets near Mobius every fifty years or so. Some people think it symbolises big changes!"

"Hm." The Black Arms were certainly _trying_ to cause big changes. Shadow looked up again, and it was quiet for a few moments.

"Hey," Sonic said, "do you remember fighting that lizard-thing now?"

Shadow blinked, looking at him. "Yes?"

"Pretty cool, huh? You ever charge up with the Emeralds like that before?" Sonic seemed as carefree and easygoing as ever as he spoke. Shadow got the feeling there was something else there he couldn't read; Sonic was harder to figure out than he seemed at first brush.

In any case, Shadow shook his head. "Professor Gerald theorised _something_ spectacular would happen, but we only had the one Emerald on the ARK." Not to mention only a few months before GUN attacked.

The blue hedgehog chuckled. "That was the first thing I figured out I could do with 'em!"

"Really?"

"Uh-huh! I was keeping them out of Eggman's hands, and when I had to fight him up on the Death Egg, that's when I used them for the first time!"

"Hm. ...What else can you do with them?"

"Well, I learned Chaos Control from you. I also learned your Chaos Spear, more or less...!"

"Chaos Spear?"

"Yeah, you almost knocked me off the ARK with it!" Sonic stood up, grinning, and held a hand out. "Give me a Chaos Emerald and I'll show you!"

Shadow obliged, and Sonic looked off the edge of the cliff, concentrating intently on some point a little past its edge. He suddenly yelled "Sonic Wind!" and gestured - Shadow felt the Emerald's energy as Sonic used it to create a swirling vortex of blue energy lances, which only lasted a few seconds before spending itself.

He remembered _that_, and thanks to the demonstration, his own variant on weaponised Chaos Energy. Sonic turned back to him. "Remember?"

"I do now."

"Good!" Sonic grinned, and Shadow smiled faintly back at him. At least he _was_ smiling a little again. Pleased, Sonic handed the Emerald back, then absently started fiddling with his - with Shadow's - gold bracelet. He looked at it and pricked his ears, as if noticing it for the first time. "Hey, I guess I should give you this back!"

Shadow chuckled. "I guess you should." He let Sonic hand it back as well and clipped it back into place, instantly feeling its damping, focusing effect. He kept that arm up, looking at it.

"I'd just about got used to how weird it felt, too!"

"It feels good to have it back." He let that arm down, looking at both bracelets. "It and the other one are meant to help focus Chaos Energy."

"Whoa, really?" Sonic came closer - within Shadow's personal space and either not noticing or much caring about the look he got - and looked the bracelets over. "That's pretty cool!"

"Professor Gerald gave them to me shortly after I first woke up."

"That makes sense, I guess." He backed off a little, looking at Shadow. "...You know, once this is over and your leg's better, we should have a rematch!"

Shadow blinked at him. He remembered - they'd fought on Prison Island, and had a deadly serious race toward the Eclipse Cannon's barrel. A slow smirk overtook his expression, that competitive side he was barely aware of reasserting itself. "Didn't get enough the first two times?"

Sonic gave him a challenging grin back. "Well, you just didn't have what it takes to beat me!"

"They were both _draws_, as I remember."

"Hah! Like I said, you couldn't beat me!"

"Heh. Challenge accepted."

Sonic pumped one fist. "All right!" They both laughed, Shadow more chuckling quietly. A little silence passed, and Sonic glanced up at the sky, with its stars and broken moon and comet.

"Well, hey," he said, looking back at the other hedgehog, "I think I'm heading in to get some sleep. You coming?"

Shadow shook his head; his sleeping patterns were badly out-of-sync with the local time after the last few days.

"Suit yourself! See you in the morning, Shadow."

"Good night, Sonic."

Sonic grinned again and gave Shadow a thumbs up before briskly disappearing into the building. Shadow watched him go, then turned his attention skyward again. If nothing else, he was in a somewhat better mood.

Whatever the Black Arms' leader wanted with him, he wasn't going to get it.


	8. Chapter 7: Irresistible Competition

Sparky: Hello everypeoples. My, my, we've reached the penultimate level... though not the penultimate chapter. We both hope you're enjoying this, and send hearty thank yous to everyone who's reviewed. Have fun with the update!

* * *

The rest of the night passed uneventfully. The lighthearted conversation with Sonic and having some time to himself afterwards left Shadow in a better mood to spend under the stars, resting without sleeping. As dawn broke, he noticed something that made him stand up: two figures flying or gliding their way across the canyon. One was red, and after a little the shape resolved itself into Knuckles. The other glider was both white and black mixed, a little pink in there somewhere. He frowned as they changed direction, evidently spotting him and coming his way. Just before they landed, the second person's identity clicked into place.

"Hello, Shadow," said Rouge. "Fancy seeing you here." Her voice was pretty pleasant; always had been, if Shadow's memory could be trusted.

"Hello," added Knuckles, looking pleased to see him.

"Good morning, Rouge. Knuckles. What are you two doing here?"

"I'm on assignment to find out more about the Black Arms." Rouge tilted her head slightly. "I was also going to collect the Chaos Emerald, but it seems you already have it..." Knuckles quirked a brow, which Rouge ignored. Shadow nodded in response, and she sighed. "Oh well... I guess it doesn't really matter, as long as it's in good hands. Do you know anything about the Black Arms' connection to the ARK?"

The question confused Shadow a little, and he shook his head. "Amy found a little information about the Cold War and - and the ARK, but I don't know what they want with it now."

"Hmm... and they didn't say anything to you? I'd heard they had been trying to get in contact with you."

"Their leader didn't seem to see fit to explain what was going on. He knew me, and said something about a day of reckoning and taking back what's theirs, but I don't know what he was talking about. I don't suppose you know anything more." She worked for the government, right?

Rouge thought about that before answering. "Well, not anything useful, anyway. I was sent to get more information, after all. We had no idea such an organised group even existed, and they haven't made any demands despite the scale of this attack. It's terrible."

Shadow crossed his arms and nodded. "Tails found a shuttle in this base. We'll be going up to the ARK after them and a Chaos Emerald up there once he and the others wake up."

Rouge nodded firmly. "I'll go with you. They've got to be stopped."

"We'll all go," added Knuckles, "and put an end to this."

Feeling no further words needed, Shadow uncrossed his arms to beckon them and walked into the building. Sonic was already about half awake; seeing them arrive, he waved at the trio, then poked Tails' side. The younger Mobian squirmed.

"Tails! Hey, Tails, is your rocket ready yet?"

Tails blinked up at him, still waking up.

"Morning, Tails!"

"Good morning, Sonic..." The fox sat up and rubbed his eyes; woken up by their talking, Amy sat up as well.

"So, is the shuttle ready?"

"Uhh..." Tails stood up and walked across to his equipment. "...Yep, we're clear to launch!"

"Then let's get going," Shadow said.

"Whatever you do," Sonic said, grinning, "Just don't let Knuckles fly it!"

Knuckles gave him a dirty look, and Tails rolled his eyes. "I didn't _let_ him fly last time..."

"I'm sitting next to Sonic!" chirped Amy, and Sonic was suddenly beside Tails, looking worried in a not entirely serious way.

Tails was unsympathetic and trying not to smile. "You can't sit with me, Sonic, I have to pilot it!"

Sonic looked to Shadow next as the black hedgehog chuckled. "C'mon, Shadow, help me out here!"

"Well, I suppose I can sit between you."

"Phew!"

"I guess..." Amy kicked at the ground as Sonic boarded, she and the others save Tails following. None of the chairs really seemed designed for the average short Mobian, but the members of the group did at least fit. Sonic sat by the wall, and as promised Shadow was between him and Amy; Rouge and Knuckles settled themselves in the second row. After a little, they felt the rocket move as if being transported, and Tails finally came aboard, flying in and shutting the hatch behind him.

"Launch sequence initiated!" the pilot declared as he jogged to the cockpit and clipped his seatbelt on. "Is everyone strapped in?"

Contrary as ever, Sonic asked, "Do I have to?" even as he was buckling up, everyone else doing the same; Shadow had a little more trouble than the others, but was in quickly enough.

After everyone called their readiness forward to Tails, he said, "Okay, here we go..." The rocket slowly started tilting, and in a short time everyone was more laying on their backs with their feet up than sitting. Tails started a countdown, at first calling increments of ten: "Blast-off in sixty..."

Amy glanced at Shadow, noticing something.

"You got your bracelet back."

Shadow gestured at Sonic with a head tilt. "He gave it back last night."

"Fifty..."

"Hey, it's yours, and all!" Sonic shuffled in his seat a little. When Tails announced forty, he started tapping an index finger against one arm of his chair, once a second.

"Thirty..."

Knuckles seemed uncomfortable. "Never thought I'd have to go up there again..."

"We-ell," teased Rouge, "At least there's no chance of your Master Emerald getting lost this time."

Shadow was sure the echidna was glaring at her, even if he couldn't see them.

"Twenty..."

Sonic tapped five times.

"Fifteen..."

Amy screwed her eyes shut, and Sonic seemed to be getting more excited. In the back of Shadow's mind, something about this whole process seemed familiar and mildly uncomfortable.

"Ten... nine... eight... seven... six..."

He was going home. Who knew what would be up there?

"Five... four... three... two... one, _launch!_"

Even as Tails said it, the massive engines just behind them ignited, pinning everyone to their seats with a force several times that of Mobius' gravity as the rocket launched into the air at speeds only Sonic and Shadow could handle; Sonic whooped happily, and the others either groaned at him or remained silent.

It didn't take that long before the incredible acceleration eased off. Amy sighed in relief, Knuckles mumbled something to himself, and the oddly familiar sensation left Shadow before it reached his conscious consideration. "That wasn't so bad," he said.

Sonic chuckled. "Now the real fun begins!" He unstrapped himself, and with no gravity to speak of, drifted out of his seat thanks to his own motion. Shadow watched him. Zero-g tests... that had been a while. Shadow unbuckled as well, slowly backflipping out of his chair and holding onto the top. He could see Knuckles and Rouge again - the second row was slightly longer than the first, and the bat was leaning forward in her seat, looking out the cockpit window.

"Hm, where is the ARK?" she asked.

"We're in an elliptical orbit that should bring us to it in about fifteen minutes, so we'll see it soon," Tails answered her.

Rouge nodded, unstrapping as well and using her wings to manoeuvre as she stretched. Amy looked up at Shadow and raised her brows.

"Isn't that confusing?"

"You get used to it."

Sonic kicked off from the wall, ending up hanging upside down with his foot under a handhold. "It'd be more fun if there was more room!"

"There are parts of the ARK where you can manipulate some of its artificial gravity." Shadow paused, thinking. Hadn't they...? "Didn't you pass through some of those areas?"

"Yep! It was pretty cool!" The blue hedgehog kicked off again, drifting toward Tails to look out the window. Shadow watched from where he was, contentedly 'standing' on his hands. Knuckles unstrapped himself and drifted, half gliding on instinct, to one of the walls, hanging easily down from it. Amy and Tails were the only ones still in their chairs: Tails to pilot the shuttle, Amy evidently less comfortable with zero gravity than the others and determined not to show it too much.

As promised, within fifteen minutes they saw the great rocky edge of the space colony ARK, slowly filling up the cockpit's view; Sonic pointed it out. "There it is!"

"Uh-huh," Tails answered. "We'll be there soon."

"It seems just the same as how we left it. Let's hope we're the first ones up here," said Rouge.

Knuckles looked at her. "Wouldn't they have told you?"

"I hate to say so, but I can't get signal up here except in certain locations."

Tails nodded, saying, "I guess there aren't many communications satellites near the ARK." Presently, there was a slight flash, and Tails responded to several people's confused looks. "That was the edge of the atmosphere field - we're inside it now."

"So we can go outside?" Sonic asked. At Tails' nod, he grinned at the striped hedgehog. "Hey, Shadow... let's go! I bet we can beat these guys to the ARK - and the Chaos Emerald!"

"Just be careful, Sonic. The ARK might have an atmosphere field, but there's still no gravity in most areas; if you drift off, you'll go right through to open space." Despite the warning, Tails seemed more amused than anything.

For his part, Sonic just grinned at him. "I've been here before, y'know."

Shadow took out a Chaos Emerald and tossed it to Sonic. "You'd have enough time to use Chaos Control if you fell off."

"Hey, thanks!" Sonic caught it easily and put it away before shoving off Tails' chair and drifting to the door. "I bet we won't need it, though. You ready?"

Shadow joined him, grabbing a handhold. "Ready."

"Let's _go!_" Sonic pushed the door open with a little effort, the pressure outside different from that inside, and leapt out, Shadow right behind him as the others waved. The closest platform was distant yet, but the two of them were right on target and landed easily on it, running off together. The ARK didn't quite look like Shadow remembered; whether it was damage from just before he and Sonic had used Chaos Control to stop its fall or the Black Arms' work, he couldn't say. Either way, even if the Black Arms were the first here, he wasn't going to let them do anything with the old colony.

"Heh, remember when we raced out here?" asked Sonic as they leapt to another floating platform.

"Yes, I do. That was a draw."

There was that challenging grin again. "Bet I could beat you this time!" He pointed. "The Chaos Emerald's that way, right? First one there wins - and no Chaos Control unless we're about to fall!"

Shadow's senses agreed with Sonic's. He considered the offer briefly, then smirked. "Very well."

As Shadow sped up, so too did Sonic. Shadow's injury meant that Sonic was pulling ahead, but the ARK was Shadow's old home, and he knew exactly where he was going and how to get there; this very area was where he'd once demonstrated his speed and agility for what amounted to his family, the scientists who had created him.

They lost sight of each other at the first fork, Sonic going right and Shadow left; the left fork, Shadow knew, was a shortcut. While they were apart, though, he heard Sonic yell, then an explosion, and finally Sonic calling out to him. "Hey, Shadow, looks like we've got trouble! This should make things interesting!" Despite Sonic's devil-may-care attitude, Shadow was a little alarmed as he popped back into the other hedgehog's line of sight, looking back at him as he caught up. Sonic seemed unhurt, at least, and continued explaining. "Those robots I just trashed didn't look like Eggman or GUN! They must have belonged to the Black Arms!"

"Then they are here." Shadow looked forward and sped up again, jumping to a railing. He lowered his profile to speed by a GUN cannon - he didn't remember them being there, but though the military's presence on the station disgusted him, he thought he'd leave well enough alone for the moment. They didn't recognise him or Sonic as friends, no, but they were both too fast for the cannons' aiming algorithms, assuming they weren't tailgating each other - Sonic dodged a shot aimed at Shadow with a laugh, losing a little time and just as quickly trying to make up for it. At the end of the rail, Shadow launched himself off, running along the side of the protruding 'buildings' that lined this half of the ARK, exposed now that the Eclipse Cannon was.

"Nice move!" Sonic called, following and starting to pull even again.

"Try this one." Shadow kicked a gravity switch and instantly reoriented himself, falling up to another platform. Sonic took noticeably longer to get his feet in the right position, but nonetheless hit the ground running and began to pull ahead again. That said, Shadow managed to swing ahead of him after another split in the path.

"Guess you haven't lost your touch!"

Shadow smirked at him, but looking ahead, something caught his eye. A small drone, black and purple, that painted yellow eye looking at him from its camera in the middle...

Forgetting the race for an instant, Shadow veered off path slightly and leapt at it. The drone made a quick dodge, losing one of its propulsion arms as Shadow clipped it and kept going. The voice of the Black Arm's leader shouted after him, angry and crackling: "You traitor!" There might have been more, but the microphone fizzled out.

Without slowing or missing a beat, Sonic pricked his ears at it. "Huh, what's that guy's big problem, anyway?"

"Hopefully, we won't find out until this is over."

"Right!"

The pair could see more Black Arms forces this close to the ARK. Some of them even looked like humans and Mobians; evidently they didn't have the resources to send a force solely consisting of robots up to the colony. They were trying to damage GUN's defences, unable to simply bypass everything like the two speedy hedgehogs. Sonic and Shadow bypassed the insurgents, as well, aiming only to get to the Chaos Emerald ahead of the Black Arms and ahead of one another.

Sonic darted off the rough path of drifting debris, and Shadow realised he'd found what looked like a shortcut: there was a slowly spinning platform, one that hadn't been there fifty years before. As long as they timed their jumps right, it would shave at least a minute off their path, and Shadow jumped on after Sonic. A couple of sparking forcefields barred the way, and Sonic was already off the platform to a walkway - but that safety rail! Shadow leapt up to it even as he was starting to slip from the platform. At the curving end of the broken rail, he leaped up, turning a full and entirely unnecessary revolution in the air before landing dead on target on another rail higher up.

He'd forgotten just how much fun altered gravity trials were.

"Sweet moves, Shadow! But how about this?" Evidently not about to be outdone, Sonic sprang clean off the edge of the path below, onto one of the unstable little hunks of debris from the ARK, left behind after its hollow half had broken apart to expose the Eclipse Cannon. He leapt away to another chunk before the first had a chance to disintegrate, and from there to a third, a fourth - working his way up to where Shadow was headed. The darker hedgehog lowered his profile and kept going - he could see a door to the ARK proper from where he was grinding. Their speed almost matched, Shadow arrived at the end of his rail just barely ahead of Sonic, stunting again on the dismount and pulling ahead another precious ten metres.

"Hey, not bad!"

"You're not bad yourself!"

Sonic laughed. "We should do this more often!"

They could both see their destination ahead of them now, a wide jump the final obstacle. Shadow eyed it, quickly running through his options on the breakneck approach. He wasn't sure if he could make the jump outright, though with his jets he could probably make it across, though he'd have to slow down some. There was also a railing arcing around it: it would take a little longer but be a surer path...

Shadow hopped to the rail, and Sonic leaped straight into the void, whooping and all but dancing through the air. Sonic hit the very, very edge of the platform only seconds before Shadow reached the end of the rail, the two of them suddenly level with each other again with only a straight-line run to the airlock. And Sonic, uninjured, was quite simply the faster of the two on a straightaway, and completely aware of it. He looked sideways at Shadow and flashed a grin. "Later, Shadow!"

Sonic pulled ahead, then skid to a stop, brought up short by the airlock mechanism. He slammed his hand on the control button, and as the door started to open, got ready to rush in, but Shadow had dropped into a skid - a skid that finally proved to be one too much on his leg, and he tumbled head over heels into the airlock, more rolling in than running.

"Whoa!" Sonic ducked in after him and walked over. "You okay?"

There was a pause before Shadow picked himself up. "Fine." Saying the word through gritted teeth and standing on one leg, he didn't entirely look it; Sonic shrugged his concern off after a moment, though. If Shadow said he was fine, he was fine, he could handle it. Besides, he'd won.

"That was a good race! Heh, I can't believe you got past me right at the end! Why do people make doors so slow?"

Shadow lowered the tip of his right boot to the ground for balance, still keeping his weight off the leg. Sure enough, he was already recovering: "Ah, blaming the door now, is it?"

Unoffended, Sonic grinned. "Hey! Someone had to open it! Unless you'd rather I just crashed in here!"

"Well, fair point." Shadow gingerly planted his foot and let some weight shift to it, looking around.

"This place is really huge, isn't it?" Sonic commented. "That Emerald's gotta be somewhere nearby, though, I can feel it!"

Sonic was right: Shadow could feel it as easily as his companion. He hadn't been to this part of the ARK much, if at all, but he did remember the floor plan having a lot of patterns. After a little, he beckoned Sonic and got moving, limping at a walk, Sonic alongside.

It wasn't long at all before they found it, or at least the room the jewel had to be in. The door was closed, and didn't open when Shadow tried it. He backed off, therefore, and rammed it - the door easily came down with a loud _wham_, the area's doors more meant to section off various rooms than to actually keep anything determined in or out. Sure enough, the Chaos Emerald was there - but his violent entrance set off the localised alarms.

Shadow froze. Alarms never did him any good, especially not the ARK's own fifty-year-old sirens and flashing lights. All he heard and saw was an old friend of his.


	9. Chapter 8: The Doomed Colony

Ardil: Hi, LordCybot! We're really glad you're enjoying the story so far! Naturally, I can't comment on your request - but I do find it interesting... ^_~ For some definite if very, very old Shadow/Amy, there's always Only Yesterday, if you can put up with my writing from that long ago. Keep in mind, too, that Insurrection is part of something much bigger, something we're calling Project Blur - there will be more stories in this series!

* * *

He was on his own, wandering around. The ARK's emergency alarms suddenly went off at their highest level - flashing red lights, sirens - and Maria ran up to him and grabbed his hand.

"Shadow! Shadow - Grandfather's experiments, they - something's gone horribly wrong!"

"What? What's happened?"

"I - I don't know! There are soldiers-" She added her other hand, Shadow's in both of hers. "Shadow, they're _shooting_ people!"

The hedgehog locked up. He didn't know how he knew, but he realised exactly what was happening: GUN had arrived. If he didn't move, and move fast, Maria was going to die. He was frightened, but didn't panic - he had to get her out of there, _immediately._

He pulled his hand back and picked her up, something he'd never done before but knew he was more than strong enough to. She yelped and grabbed his headspikes; it was a little awkward, of course, with her a little under twice his height, but it didn't matter. "We have to get out of here - hang on!" And he took off running, keeping his acceleration and speed to something Maria could handle, but very quickly faster than her top speed by far. The familiar halls of the space station were overrun by soldiers, and shortly after running past a group of them, he saw someone he knew - Doctor Chadhurry, who'd designed his jet boots and bracelets. He lay on the ARK's metal floor, badly injured.

Maria gasped. "Shadow! Please, you have to help him!"

Shadow slowed and stopped. That was just like Maria, thinking to help someone despite the danger that she, that they, were in. Every instinct screamed at him to just keep going, heedless of the others, but he let her down and charged over to a medical station, shattering the glass and getting a tube of wound-sealing gel. Applying it stopped the bleeding almost at once, and a little colour returned to Chadhurry's face. He even opened his eyes, weakly thanking Shadow. He certainly wouldn't be up to moving around much, but assuming nothing else happened, he'd live.

Maria clasped her hands at her chest. "Shadow, you saved him!" She was still terrified, but she was proud of Shadow for stopping to help. The hedgehog touched Chadhurry's shoulder, vaguely trying to be comforting, then put the tube of wound sealant in a space in his left boot; judging by the gunshots he could hear in the distance, he'd probably be needing more. Maria let him carry her as easily as before, and they were away again.

On their way through another room, they ran across another researcher, someone whose name Shadow didn't recall - he'd seen her around here and there, but she'd been working on a project with Gerald that he wasn't allowed to ask much about. Shadow stopped, let Maria down, and applied some gel to her injuries; she groaned, but to his eye appeared to be stabilising, though she didn't wake up. Maria gripped his free hand, and he looked up at her.

"She'll be all right. Come on."

Maria gave him a quick little nod. "...The others... Shadow, what about the others?"

Shadow swallowed. He had a rough idea of who, among the senior researchers, he could expect to find dying without help. There were three more he might be in time to save. He didn't question the knowledge, simply accepted it as he picked his old friend up again. "I know where they are. We'll find them before we get out of here."

"Shadow..." She hugged him, an awkward motion thanks to being carried, and it crushed Shadow's heart. Something told him this was all going to be futile. But, after she took up a position to let him carry her again, he took off, determined to keep his word and get them all safely through this nightmare. He ran past a massive fire, the sprinkler system active and trying to stop its spread, and ended up in one of the larger halls.

The soldiers were packed into it, arrayed before them, shooting at anything that moved, and above it all, he saw a drone. It was projecting a hologram of a smartly-dressed human with deep red hair, one who was glaring down at Shadow and the soldiers alike. There was no static as he spoke.

"Make. Them. _Pay!_"

Maria shrank back at the expression Shadow made. The soldiers were pointing their guns their way, and he had a good six of seven Chaos Emeralds. Shadow set his friend down and charged into the soldiers' midst, screaming, bullets having no hope of being in the right place to hit him. In the middle of the room, he unleashed an uncontrolled and extremely destructive blast of Chaos Energy, knocking soldiers and their machines flying, surely killing at least half of them and crippling the rest, all his rage and hatred and terror channelled into it.

As the wave of energy passed, Shadow looked up at the hologram. The Black Arms leader was smiling that terrible smile of his, revelling in the destruction and death.

"Let them _burn_, Shadow."

Shadow half grinned, half snarled, turned - and saw Maria. She was still frightened, and not just of the soldiers attacking them. She shook her head and backed off a step. "No..."

Seeing her look at him like that knocked all the anger out of him; he looked around with fresh eyes. He'd just killed two dozen soldiers - people - and a dozen more were groaning in pain around him. He'd done that. They were tying to kill him, had killed his friends, were going to kill his family, but he'd done that and wasn't any better than them.

A shiver shook its way through him; Shadow ignored the hologram and ran back to Maria, picking her up again and taking off, leaving the GUN soldiers where they laid. He was taking turns at random, and a few corridors later saw another group of soldiers, the drone nearby as if waiting for them.

"Please, no!" cried Maria; Shadow pinned his ears against his head briefly, guilty, and hopped over them almost before they were aware of their presence.

The Black Arms' leader's voice called after him: "_Coward!_"

Shadow ignored him.

The next person they found was Professor Cam Nguyen, trying to prop herself up on the door to Shadow's room; her wound wasn't immediately lethal, but bleeding badly. Some of the sealant gel stopped it, and she was alert enough to talk to both of them. "You two run along," she said. At both their worried looks, she waved them away. "I'll be fine - get out of here!"

That was just like her. She'd been second only to Gerald himself on Shadow's team, handling his psychology and making sure he wasn't going to have any breakdowns once they let him out of his quarantine. They'd all been perfectly honest about it being a concern - and about Shadow passing their tests with room to spare, letting him wander the ARK a good forty-eight hours ahead of schedule. Still, Shadow dallied briefly after picking Maria up again - a sharp "Go!" from the professor spurred him on his way once more.

They passed the other researcher's bedrooms, and those of their families, and ended up going by the unmarked lab where Shadow had been created and had first awakened to the world. It was Henry Tower that Maria and Shadow saw in need of help there, barely clinging to life and already unconscious. It took longer for Shadow to satisfy himself that the biochemist was stable enough to leave be than it had with the others, and Maria shared his worry.

"...I wonder where Brutus is..." she said, voice just above a whisper.

Shadow considered. "...He's fine. He's already off the ARK." Again, he had no idea how he knew, just that he did know that the boy, their friend, Henry's son, would be safe without their help. He didn't dare look for him, afraid his presence would somehow change things for the worse. He looked down at the scientist, then finally picked up Maria again. "We'll just have to trust Doctor Tower will be okay. Let's get to the escape pods."

Maria nodded, shakily, and Shadow took off one more time. He couldn't hear gunfire anymore, the soldiers surely seeking him deeper in the heart of the colony, and on the way to the pods, they found the last victim: Doctor Morris, one of Gerald's students and nearly as much of an expert on Chaos Energy as Professor Robotnik himself. The soldiers had clearly shot him as he'd been heading for the escape pods. Shadow pinned his ears back as they approached, angry again at GUN.

He sealed one side of Morris' wound, then carefully turned him over to apply the gel to the other half. Morris gasped, coughed a couple of times, and was quiet for a few moments. When he finally spoke, it was in a weak but very grateful, very sincere voice. "Shadow... you saved my life..."

Maria smiled broadly through her fear. "You saved them, Shadow! You did it!" And she hugged him.

Shadow hugged tightly back. She was so proud of him, and once they got off the ARK and made contact again, so would Professor Gerald be...

* * *

Shadow kicked involuntarily. When had he ended up on the ground? He groaned and opened his eyes - when had he closed them? - and saw Sonic standing over him. Why was Sonic on the ARK?

"Shadow?" Whatever the reason, he looked and sounded concerned, though.

Shadow slowly sat up, head in one hand. "What...?"

"The alarms went off and you passed out!"

Of course.

A dream.

It had been a dream. Shadow let his arm drop, still looking down.

It hadn't happened that way, of course: he _had_ panicked, ran blindly through unfamiliar corridors dragging Maria, the attack coming when they'd been exploring. He hadn't had any Chaos Emeralds, either, and hadn't fought against the soldiers, too mad with fear to pit his skills against them, or even to stop and help the people he could hear crying out and dying.

There had only been four of the soldiers who had found them, who'd chased them into the observatory. If he hadn't panicked, Maria and several of the others might still have been alive, fifty years on.

"Hey, are you okay?"

Shadow glanced up at Sonic. "...I think so." He stood, unevenly. The Black Arms hadn't been there, either, of course - their leader was too young, aside from everything else. But the dream was right about one thing: his friends and family wouldn't have wanted him to join the Black Arms' cause. Not Maria, and not any of the slaughtered researchers.

He still missed them terribly.

Sonic watched, still looking concerned. "...We've almost got all the Chaos Emeralds now, you know," he said, quieter than usual. "Just one more, and we can stop anything those Black Arms losers try!"

There was silence for a moment before Shadow nodded. "You're right." He lifted his head to look around the room. There: one of the ARK's first aid kits, undisturbed since the attack. The gel that in his dream had saved the researchers was real, he knew; it was an experimental substance meant to keep a long, long time even in much less sterile conditions than an abandoned space station. Shadow limped up to it and opened the old kit, taking a tube of gel and a fresh roll of bandages. He sat under the kit and unwrapped his leg.

It did look better than before, but that race with Sonic hadn't done him any favours. The blue hedgehog fidgeted, perhaps slightly guilty, and that finally got a little smile out of Shadow.

"I didn't have to take your challenge." He spread a little of the gel on his leg. It felt cool as he put it on, and the anaesthetic mixed into the formula dulled the pain quite noticeably as the top sealed itself, solidifying from gel to paste to a film with roughly the same consistency as skin. Shadow remembered it would even darken itself to match his skin tone given enough time. "And it did get us here before the Black Arms."

"Heh heh... I guess it did. Now we just have to find Tails and the others again!"

Shadow nodded, looking consideringly back at the dressed injury. He knew he should have been more or less good to go, but, given what he'd probably end up having to put himself through before the fight against the Black Arms was over, he rebandaged it again, to be on the safe side. Once the bandage was in place, he stood up again, testing it. Sonic looked surprised that he was almost as confident of it as when they'd first met in Westopolis, before he'd been shot.

"That stuff must be pretty good! Maybe I should get some."

The comment, in turn, surprised Shadow. "You've never seen any before?"

Sonic shook his head. "Uh-uh."

More research ended by the attack, perhaps? "Well, any undamaged first aid stations around the colony should have a tube," Shadow explained, putting the one he'd found in his boot. His dream's logic had been right about that as well, at least, though it felt a little odd against his left heel as he and Sonic left the room.

"Cool! So I wonder where Tails could be..."

"The nearest docking area would be this way." They began walking through the ARK, and after a little Sonic produced a pair of Chaos Emeralds.

"Hey, Shadow, I think you should hold onto these. You've got the rest, and if one of us needs to charge up, no good if the other one has some of them, huh?"

Shadow blinked, then quietly accepted the gems and put them away. "So you _can_ plan ahead."

Sonic shoved him. "Ah, shut up, Faker!"

Despite the nightmare he'd just had, and despite the seriousness of the Black Arms' plans, Shadow took the invasion of personal space and the insulting nickname in the playful way Sonic intended. He chuckled.

* * *

About a third of the way to what Shadow remembered to be the closest docking area, Tails' voice came on over the ARK's intercom system. "Sonic, Shadow! Hi! I've got you on my map - you're six floors away from where we are!"

Sonic and Shadow looked up at the closest speaker. "And where is that?" Shadow called up at it.

"According to this map, we're in room 460-15-33. Do you know it?"

The ARK's rooms were numbered in a logical way. Shadow didn't recall the actual room, and for all he knew he'd never been in it before, but he'd effectively just been given directions: they were in block four-hundred sixty, on floor fifteen, in room thirty-three. "I do. We'll meet you there."

"Okay!" The speaker system shut off communications with a beep, and Shadow took the lead again, speeding up with Sonic alongside. The abandoned station was quiet, for the most part, the air still. A few automated defences offered resistance - not even the two hedgehogs had covered more than a fraction of the ARK's corridor space the last time they'd been on the colony - but the small robots were either ignored or wrecked. Turning into the final corridor, the neatly marked room 460-15-33 came into view, with _two soldiers standing right outside_.

Shadow stopped dead, expression aggressive. The echoes of his nightmare weren't helping his general opinion of the military, and to see them on the colony they'd destroyed fifty years previous stirred darker urges in his heart. It was a minor battle keeping himself still. Sonic had no such issues, running right up to the pair with his easy energy.

"Hey, what're you guys doing up here?"

"Securing the ARK," answered the woman on the left. "We were told to let you through here." She opened the door, ignoring Shadow. The soldier on the right, however, was giving the black hedgehog something of a funny look as Sonic walked unconcernedly through.

Shadow took a deep breath and straightened himself, still not at all happy, as Tails' voice drifted through the door. "...and that's why - oh, hi, Sonic!"

A few other familiar voices greeted Sonic as Shadow steeled himself and walked on through; the soldiers watched him pass, but did nothing to stop him. Inside, he found himself looking at the rest of his companions from the shuttle, as well as five more uniformed soldiers. In particular, near the centre of the room was a grey-haired man whose badges of rank suggested someone of quite some importance - and he was starting right at Shadow, with nearly the same kind of expression the hedgehog usually reserved for GUN itself, though blunted by age and experience.

Shadow looked levelly back for a few seconds. He frowned. Those eyes...

The general kept glaring through Shadow's growing recognition. "You..."

Not many people had eyes like that, human or Mobian. The last time he'd seen those mismatched eyes... well, that had been fifty years previously, even if it felt like less than half a year. The general looked like he was pushing sixty, which...

There was no way, but it looked about right.

"_Brutus?!"_

Sonic blinked. "Wait, you _know_ each other?"

Shadow and Brutus both ignored him. "So you remember me."

"Yes, of course I..." Shadow trailed off. There wasn't any 'of course' about it after the last few weeks, but he did. Little Brutus, a friend of Maria's... pushing sixty or not, he still stood straight, still spoke strongly, age not appearing to have taken much away from him beyond his hair's colour.

And he'd aligned himself with his own mother and father's murderers. "What are you doing with _GUN?_"

"Protecting people - unlike you!"

"I told you, Shadow's on our side!"

Getting over his surprise and getting angry again, Shadow hardly heard Tails' defence. "They're the ones who attacked us!"

Brutus' cool military bearing, or what was left of it, finally left him completely. "Because of you! You're the one who was responsible!"

"They didn't have to murder the ARK's people if they were after me!" And for Shadow's part, he was yelling right back, calm demeanour broken by leashing his fighting instincts in all but his voice.

The human struggled for a few moments to produce an answer. " - How could they know who was innocent?!"

Shadow snarled, taking a step closer. He was shaking with the conflicting impulses to go after a hated GUN general and remembering someone who'd once been a close friend. "Of _what?! _Everyone was!"

Brutus stared at him in disbelief. "No they weren't! You of all people - " and he pointed at Shadow in emphasis, "you _know_ that!"

" - Gerald only went insane after the attack! After they murdered Maria!"

"Because she was with _you!_ Because of you and the professor! She was my best friend, and she's dead because of _you!_"

Sonic, apparently deciding enough was enough, stepped in between them. "Whoa, time out!"

He didn't actually break their line of sight with each other, given he was only half Brutus' height. Shadow balled both fists, glaring up at Brutus with narrowed eyes. Doubt was cracking fifty-year-old anger, though: Brutus was talking like the Black Arms. Were there yet more things other people knew that he didn't?

Tails' voice, quiet compared to the shouting they'd been doing, came from over by a console. "Uh, I think you should see this..."

It was enough. Shadow sighed, looking down and finally breaking eye contact. He heard some of the others walking to Tails, and after a few uncertain steps backward, raised his head and joined them. The mechanic was just highlighting something onscreen, a strange black object silhouetted against Mobius' blue and white.

"What _is_ that?" asked Knuckles.

"I don't know, but if we can see it from here, it must be huge..." It took a moment for the ARK's old and unmaintained systems to zoom in and focus on the object, but it eventually resolved into an immense aircraft as big as a good-sized town, coloured in shades of black and dark steel.

Brutus, now regaining some semblance of self-control, walked over behind the Mobians, scrupulously avoiding looking at Shadow. Without looking back at him, Tails said, "That's not one of yours, is it, General."

"No... it's not."

"The Black Arms," Shadow stated.

Tails nodded. "Uh-huh."

"Guess we know where we're going!" said Sonic.

Brutus was frowning, trying to puzzle something out. Leaning over Tails, he zoomed in still further on the ship, revealing a few markings - the swirling Black Arms insignia - and writing in a language Shadow didn't recognise. Slowly, disbelieving, Brutus said, "That thing was supposed to have been decommissioned decades ago..."

Tails looked up at him. "You recognise it?"

Rouge leaned in past Shadow to peer at the ship as well. "..._Kayzen QRX-118-D_, unofficially nicknamed the Black Comet. There was only one ever built, and it never flew... we thought."

"Now you're collecting ships?" quipped Knuckles.

"Oh, I just do my homework."

Amy cut in. "From fifty years ago, right? The same time the ARK was shut down?! It _is_ all about the Cold War, isn't it?!"

Brutus slammed his hand on the console. "Dammit! This attack on the ARK was a feint all along!" He whirled around and walked briskly for the door, already giving orders over his radio. "Sergeant Mehew!"

"Sir!"

"Prep Diablon for immediate launch! Have it ready to go by the time I reach the dock site!"

He was already too far away for Shadow and the others to hear a response, his soldiers going with him. Shadow watched him go, feeling sad and conflicted for a few seconds. He shook his head, looked back at the huge ship drifting across Mobius' face, and belatedly answered Amy. "It has to be."

"But why...?"

"I don't know. But we're going to stop them."

"Right on!" Sonic chimed in. "Tails, that rocket of yours will get us there, right?"

"It should do. We probably won't have enough fuel to get back up here, though."

"Doesn't matter! Let's go!"

"Let's." Shadow turned around, leading the way back to their hijacked shuttle. No, he still didn't know what the Black Arms knew about his past, or for that matter what Brutus did, but it didn't matter a bit. Shadow was going to put an end to the Black Arms if he had to do it himself, and, listening to the others' footsteps behind him, he knew he didn't have to.


	10. Chapter 9: Kayzen

Ivo's rocket blazed its way down through Mobius' atmosphere, catching up to the _Kayzen_, the vast Black Comet. The great ship, of course, had a plethora of defences - turrets, defensive drones, even planes that looked piloted - so Tails was taking a chancy approach vector from behind. Acceleration slammed its passengers into their seats at Tails hurtled the rocket forward into the _Kayzen_'s dangerous blind spot, the area of the rear engines' blast, trusting the fact that the shuttle was rated for atmospheric re-entry to keep them all safe. At the last moment, the rocket slowed down sharply, pulling up - up and over - around, arcing madly - and hit the more-or-less flat deck of the _Kayzen_, scraping along a runway meant for small aeroplanes and certainly not fat rockets. It was a miracle that the rocket came to rest upright, if rather tilted, and that without rolling. A breathless, dizzy pause barely got a chance to settle inside.

"Geez, your landings don't get any better, do they?"

The team's pilot wasn't bothered by Sonic, unstrapping himself, getting to the airlock just ahead of the hedgehog and opening it to the whistling wind.

Rouge sighed. "I'm amazed we're not a small crater..." She unstrapped just before Shadow and crossed to the door with him, Knuckles and Amy following. Sonic smiled at the bat.

"If we didn't have the world's best pilot, we would be!"

Tails grinned at him and jumped down. One by one the others followed. They hadn't got far when some of the piloted planes flew by for a strafing run; with Knuckles, Shadow, and Rouge ducked behind a protrusion on the deck, Sonic pulling Amy behind cover and Tails catching up to them, the Black Arms didn't have much to fire at besides the rocket.

"We'd better get away from here before they hit something important!" Tails yelled, calling over the wind and engines.

Voice also raised to be heard, Sonic added, "And inside!"

Shadow led everyone to a hatch emblazoned with warning signs, crashing through it without bothering to check if it was locked. Some little distance away, there was a loud sound of something else striking the deck, sending a tremor rippling through it. Knuckles was visibly ruffled. "What was _that?_"

"The General said he was going to launch something down here, didn't he? Maybe that was it?" Tails said.

"If it wasn't," replied Sonic, "we'll deal with it later anyway!" And with that he followed Shadow into the inside of the ship, the rest coming in behind him, most of them besides Tails using the ladder where the lead hedgehogs hadn't bothered.

The inside of the _Kayzen_ was clearly designed by someone with a somewhat different set of aesthetics to theirs, everything painted and lit in a faint bluish tint, the flooring a deep purple. Ahead, they could see automated defences, the designs as old as the ship itself, though just as well-preserved.

Rouge came down the ladder last. "You know, some of those aircraft are fighting each other out there. I think even Doctor Robotnik is attacking."

"You mean I'm going to have to work with Eggman for the second time in a month?!" asked an incredulous Sonic.

"Well, they did crash one of his computer systems," said Shadow.

Amy giggled. "I suppose even Doctor Eggman can do the right thing sometimes, even if it is because of his computers!"

"And at least we don't have to fight them both at the same time!" Tails looked around, and, spotting a room full of computer consoles, jogged over. "I wonder if I can get the schematics for this thing..."

The rest followed him in, and Tails got to work, running into a slight snag almost immediately. "They're in Soleannan..."

"I can translate if you need me to," Rouge offered, crossing to join Tails at the console.

"It's okay, I'm just a little rusty." Working together, they soon had a map up, and Tails beckoned everyone over. "This ship is really huge. It looks like the power sources are here, here, and here, but we can't risk crashing it unless we're sure it's over a completely unpopulated area." He glanced at Knuckles with a worried expression, then continued. "We're going to have to go-"

"Right to the source!" interrupted Sonic, tapping on the map.

Knuckles, already confused by the look Tails had just given him, blinked. "You can read that?"

"Of course!"

Rouge put a hand to her chin, considering. "Straight to the command deck... it could work."

"But we'll have to be quick," Tails cautioned. "There are internal shielding units all over the place that cut the ship into sectors, so that even if it's boarded, they can contain intruders. It's a pretty clever system! If they activate enough shields ahead of us, they'll slow us down a _lot_."

Sonic grinned over at the other high-speed hedgehog. "We should be able to handle that - right, Shadow?!"

"Right." Shadow looked back at Tails. "Is there anything else we should know?"

The fox thought about it for a few moments. "...I think if we're going to be intercepted, it would probably be here." He pointed at a large room on the map. "By the shield configuration at the moment, pretty much anything headed to the command deck will be funnelled through there. We should be careful when we get close."

"Leave the shields to me," Knuckles said. "I'll take them out if I have to tear this ship apart with my bare hands!"

Sonic laughed. "All right!"

Tails was still in planning mode, reading some of the inscrutable screen. "Judging by these warnings about hull breaches, we're not the only ones trying this. It could be Eggman, or GUN, or even both. We'll have to watch out for them."

"What's that funny line around the outside of the ship?" Amy asked, pointing out said feature on the map.

"It's the edge of an atmosphere field," Rouge answered her. "The Black Comet was designed to be spaceworthy, although we never discovered quite how they intended to reach orbit."

Even if he couldn't read the writing, Shadow had, by now, all but memorised the map. They had a decent enough plan - run through to the control room as fast as possible - and any more waiting wouldn't help them at all. He gestured out the door. "Shall we?"

Together with Sonic, Shadow sped off. The Black Arms and their machines did keep slowing the two of them down, allowing the others to catch up, modern weapons and robots augmenting the _Kayzen_'s old automated turrets and drones. Enough to let the others catch up, yes, but not enough, not nearly enough, to halt their progress through the immense ship. A third of the way there or so, they passed a large hole in the hull which preceded a decisively-won battle against the insurgents' favour. Something very powerful had passed through, leaving not a single ounce of resistance standing; some of the people were still alive and probably not too happy about it, flinching as the team ran through.

For his part, Shadow didn't look too closely at them.

Unhindered by having to stop and fight, it wasn't long before the two hedgehogs came to the scene of a battle still being fought, if such a one-way fight could be called that. The Black Arms were up against a floating, surprisingly manoeuvrable mech, in shape like a human's upper body and with shield projectors on the shoulders, levelling its opposition with a deadly powerful laser on its head. The design wasn't Robotnik's, but it wasn't painted in the usual GUN motif, either - half wasn't painted at all, in fact, and the colours were a bright mix of warning red and yellow, the message clear: danger, keep clear, keep away. Watching the laser fire almost reminded Shadow of something he'd seen Tails' comparatively tiny mech do once. In fact... "You sense that, too, right?"

"Yeah, I think that thing's got a Chaos Emerald!"

"It appears to be on our side..."

"Seems like it! It's going the same way we are, too!"

Sure enough, having picked off most of its opponents, the mech began floating in the same direction they'd been headed. A shot from a Black Arms mech with fused legs but a still-functioning gun sparked off its shields, and the floating mech whipped around -_ whipped_ around, no match for Shadow or Sonic's speed but quite impressive for a machine its size that appeared to have someone operating it from within - and fired back, silencing the impertinent shooter's weapon permanently. This done, it moved on, the hedgehogs following after a brief hesitation on Shadow's end.

It didn't take long to catch up, and the mech paused, twisting around almost as fluidly as a human. Shadow had the distinct impression that it was looking down at him specifically. He folded his arms and looked back. After a brief staredown, the mech spoke in Brutus' voice, tone a little challenging. "I'm going to stop these 'Black Arms' once and for all."

"So are we," Shadow levelly answered.

Brutus was silent in response, and Sonic added, "You can join us if you can keep up!" before heading on his way again, Shadow with him. The mech followed, or at least kept going the same way they were.

Not far from the encounter, the hedgehogs were finally brought up short by a shield. "Guess we'll have to wait for Knuckles or Tails - I can't see anything to hit!"

Shadow quietly continued examining the edges of the field, Sonic trying to on the other side, until Brutus in his mech caught up. After a pause, he said, "Stand aside, Sonic. Diablon can handle this."

Sonic cocked his head at him. "Guess Shadow'd better get out of the way, too, huh?" The both of them obeyed, and one immense laser blast later, the shield was down, and they continued on - straight into a particularly large bit of resistance.

The fight wasn't anything new for Shadow, and he glimpsed bits of Diablon's fighting style. The mech was surely impressive, but without trying, he was picking out flaws. Some of the weapons it was using left it vulnerable, and the shielding occasionally gave out under the sheer strain of resisting the Black Arms' defences, many of which couldn't be intimidated or reasoned with. The mech looked rather dented as the rest of the team arrived to help and the battle finally petered out. Brutus did not appear to care, still driving his mech on, powering it with his own sheer determination as much as anything else.

Sonic and Shadow took the lead again, and several times more were checked by the Black Arms and aided by Diablon - until, finally, just a short way from the conference hall Tails had warned them was probably a trap, one shot too many got past the shields. Surrounded on three sides, the mech crashed to the ground with a resounding clatter of metal, and all at once the Black Arms still capable of doing so opened fire, trying to destroy it and kill the pilot before he could right Diablon.

Shadow charged. He knocked aside and through the insurgents and their drones, hand out as he approached the fallen Diablon, shouting two words and warping himself and Brutus back into the hallway from which they had come. The general came out the other side of the Chaos Control a few inches off the ground with a gasp and reflexive jerk, in the same position the tilted cockpit had left him, and just as quickly dropped to the floor. Shadow stayed just long enough to make sure he'd be all right before bolting back to help Sonic with the remaining resistance.

By the time the two Mobians had dealt with them all, Brutus was getting up again, looking, if anything, slightly lost.

Shadow climbed on top of Diablon to take one final look at the room, making sure it would be safe for the others, then looked down at the fallen mech. It had certainly been a big help, even if some of Brutus' aiming had come dangerously close to Shadow himself. The black hedgehog jumped down after a few more moments and crossed back to Brutus, looking up at him. "Are you all right?"

The human evidently still didn't quite know what to think, either, and didn't respond for a few seconds. "...I... ...yes." His voice had lost some of its previous strength. The close call, and perhaps just how he'd escaped from it, had left him a little shaken. "You... you saved my life." There was surprise and confusion in his voice, and then, bewildered sincerity. "...Thank you."

Shadow didn't have any words left. He simply looked down, then back up at the taller person. An awkward, confused silence passed between them.

Eventually, Brutus turned away and crossed to his immobile mech, Shadow following at a polite distance. The soldier rested his hand on Diablon for a moment, then opened up a panel, revealing a shining yellow light. He knew exactly how to extricate the Chaos Emerald, going through a series of complex locking mechanisms to do so. Emerald in hand, he turned to look back at Shadow, still looking unsure of himself and of the decision he was about to make.

Abruptly, stiffly, he held the gem out. "...Use it to stop the Black Arms."

Shadow took it from him. "I will," he said, quietly. "Thank you."

They looked at each other again.

The GUN general drew a pistol from its resting place at his hip. "...Keep going." He left without waiting for them.

Free and easy as ever, Sonic followed and quickly overtook him, his fellow hedgehog still keeping up. "We're almost there!"

Shadow resolved to think about it later; he had more to focus on than his old friend. He did finally have all the Chaos Emeralds, but despite his memory more or less returning over the journey to get them, right then he almost felt more confused than he had when he'd looked up and seen a tree snapped in two by his fall from space.

As yet another Black Arms force came into view in the next hall, Sonic diverted to fight them before the much slower general could catch up, though in truth Brutus didn't even try. He ducked behind some cover and shot with his pistol, very accurate after years upon years of training.

"Go on ahead, Shadow!" Sonic called. "We'll catch up once we've dealt with these guys!"

Shadow nodded to him and blazed forward, too fast to be stopped, and all at once he was in the next, vast hall. If he remembered the map correctly, he was now in the place Tails had warned them about, the meeting hall for addressing the crew that likely doubled as a trap for intruders.

Intruders like he himself.

That said, the hall seemed empty at first glance, at first listen, at first sweep with Chaos Energy senses. Shadow focused, looking and listening and sensing - there, up there, movement!

It was something silver against the blackness of the high ceiling, a slowly-descending ring above a flat hemisphere. Shadow started to resolve more as it came down: it was a waist-high band of dully brushed steel, locked around a dark-clothed human figure, more formal in an unfamiliar way than the style Shadow remembered from the hologram. That striking ruby-red hair surmounted his determined face, dark purpose hardening the Black Arms' leader's features.

"Well done, Shadow. I'm surprised you made it this far." Even undistorted by the drone's speaker, his voice was chilling.

Looking up at him, still frustratingly out of jumping range, Shadow's expression turned aggressive, snarling faintly, ears curled back in simmering anger. "So we finally meet."

The insurgency's mastermind held one hand out. "Give me the Chaos Emeralds, Shadow."

"I don't think so."

The others, Shadow could hear, were arriving, footsteps banging on the _Kayzen_'s metal flooring, calling greetings. He acknowledged them by turning one ear in their direction, but didn't look round, eyes locked with the Black Arms' leader's. As the man descended further, Shadow noticed a large pendant, rather out of place against the deep black formal clothing with its barely-noticeable badges of rank. His hairstyle resolved at this distance into twin backswept peaks.

"I gotta say," he heard Sonic comment, "that colour scheme looks a lot better on Shadow!"

The leader briefly glanced sideways at Sonic without moving his head, without relaxing a muscle of his stiff, straight bearing, and locked eyes with Shadow again. "This is why you are here... why you were created."

Not to be ignored, Sonic said, "You really think that matters?"

"Doesn't every being want to know why he is here? What is the purpose of his life? Why he exists?"

"Nope!" Shadow could hear Sonic grinning, heedless of danger or rank, cheeky as ever behind him.

Shadow took a deeper breath, responding to the question that had after all been more or less directed at him. "I already know all I need to."

"Do you _really_, Shadow?"

Brutus suddenly spoke. "He's made his decision!" The general fired, the insurgent leader at last within range of both bullets and fast-moving hedgehogs - but the shot sparked off a previously-unseen shield. "You'll only destroy the world!"

"Destroy it?" The leader was coolly amused. "Hardly. Listen to him, Shadow... this man whose people _did_ destroy your world."

Brutus had been a child when the ARK was attacked.

"Now he's afraid, because he can see his own destruction. We don't want to destroy this world... only those who oppose us. These people, whose greed and treachery and lust for power shapes every action they take - what good are they to you? To us?"

Shadow pinned his ears flat against his head, yelling, "As if you're any better! You've killed as many or more innocents!" He made a sweeping gesture. "Whatever you might know about fifty years ago, I won't join you!" Defiant refusal made, Shadow summoned a touch of power from the Chaos Emeralds. If a bullet couldn't make it past the shields, maybe a Chaos Spear could!

As it turned out, no, it couldn't, but Shadow did have the satisfaction of making the Black Arms leader flinch ever so slightly, though it was a little hard to see past the sparking lighting of the shield holding off the Emerald's power.

"...Very well. But you _will_ give me those Emeralds."

The leader of the insurgents touched a control on the silver band around his waist, and Shadow felt odd. Something was interfering with his grip on the Chaos Emeralds - and all at once, without him willing it, the gems showed themselves, floating in a slow ring around him. Confused and alarmed, Shadow grabbed the one directly in front of his face, and it pulled him clear off the ground, drifting inexorably for the Black Arms leader.

The others were just as surprised. "How did you do that?!"

"But you... you can't possibly..."

"This is all I need," said the red-haired human. The Emeralds were beginning to glow with power.

Shadow bent nearly double around the Emerald in his hands and activated his jets at full blast, top speed. It didn't seem to stop the Emerald, now hot with Chaos Energy against his gloves and body, but he wasn't about to let the Black Arms have them without resistance. Then, it crackled against him, power of the red Emerald seeking its brethren, escaping through the holes in Shadow's grip, the Emeralds loaning themselves to something about the man in the centre of their ring.

Quietly, oh so quietly, Shadow heard him say, "Chaos Control."

There was a shock, transmitted to Shadow as an unpleasant surge against his energy-senses rather than a physical feeling, and the burning power was gone - along with the Emerald's ability to strain against his jets. Lightspeed reflexes let him right himself before he hit the ground, but the black hedgehog lost his grasp on the gem in the process, along with his tenuous grip on what was going on.

Chaos Control. He had used Chaos Control. Shadow could only stare up at him, the human staring calmly back.

Impacts reverberated through the ship: one - two - three - four, an ominous pause, and then a more steady mechanical grumbling, vast machinery on the move. Shadow heard Knuckles take a step forward, though he and the rest were now a fair distance away from Shadow and the insurgent leader. "What did you just do with the Emeralds?!"

Sonic fidgeted, stepping lightly from side to side. "Whatever it was, it sucked all the power out them for a second!"

Still hardly able to believe it, Shadow spoke only just loudly enough for the others to hear him. "He used Chaos Control..."

"What?!" Sonic yelled. "He can't have!"

Still with that cool amusement, the Black Arms leader looked at him, again without moving his head. "Does it surprise you? Did you think you were the only ones who knew of their limitless potential? We simply didn't have the resources to harness it." He paused, just long enough to mark out an emphasis. "That was why we needed the professor."

Shadow slowly stood up from his kneel. Still quiet from shock, he could only get out a soft, "What?"

The human on his platform looked down at him, speaking to Shadow and Shadow alone again. "Professor Robotnik was already in development of the Ultimate Life Form... but he couldn't complete his project."

Shadow shrank back.

"He needed our help."

Just barely on a breath, he heard Rouge behind him. "So it was true..."

"Dume..." That was Brutus, at last naming the source of the insurgency, and he who knew the secrets of Shadow's own past.

"My father made a deal with him. He was foremost in his field," said Dume. "In exchange for his help, the professor promised him the seven Chaos Emeralds. And you, Shadow... you were to deliver them to us."

The dark hedgehog took a step backward, shaking his head. It couldn't be. He could almost hear Maria's voice, urging him to protect Mobius as the reason he'd been created - but here this man, who somehow knew how to use Chaos Control, the very thing Gerald had first figured out how to teach Shadow, he knew. And after everything that had happened...

Behind him, he heard Brutus' voice, laced with old pain. "He betrayed his own people... for _research._"

Shadow swallowed dryly. No more defiant words were coming to him. If this was true, Brutus was right - and how could it not be?

Sonic cut into his rolling thoughts. "So what? None of that changes anything - we're not just gonna stand here while you do whatever it is you're planning!"

Shadow stood a little straighter. That was true, too. Before he could say anything, though, Dume, for the first time, addressed Sonic directly, his floating platform turning to face him. "Actually... I think you will."

Amy made a stifled noise. Brutus forced the word "_Run!_" out at the end of a breath, and someone collapsed; Shadow looked over his shoulder and turned as Dume continued floating backwards at no particular speed, unhurried.

"The gas is already in your bloodstreams. The end is near, now."

Before Shadow's eyes, the others were stopping, helpless, falling where they stood: the sight hurtled Shadow into battle-ready sped-up processing, accessing the situation in a few seconds that stretched agonisingly from his perspective. For all his warning, Brutus hadn't, couldn't escape; Tails was trying for the door and not entirely succeeding. Amy seemed completely immobilised, with Rouge trying to drag her somewhere and collapsing even as Shadow watched, and even Knuckles couldn't seem to get his feet back under him. Sonic alone was focused on Shadow, his never-ending drive pushing through the shock and even a little fear still dominating his expression.

"Sh-Shadow... counting on - you!"

Shadow could only look back, horrified, for another long heartbeat; time suddenly snapped back to normal for him as he whipped around after Dume. The Black Arms leader disappeared through a door somewhere high in the wall, Shadow only able to follow through one at ground level. Fury and fear drove him through the labyrinthine interior of the giant ship faster than he could ever remember running in the short time he'd been alive and aware. If the others died - if _his friends_ died, if he lost what he had regained - Shadow was going to tear that human to pieces.


	11. Chapter 10: Legacy

Shadow followed the signature of the seven Chaos Emeralds, ignoring everything in his way, walls and shields included, dully burning injury in his leg included. He'd briefly considered warping back to the others and just as quickly realised he couldn't - the seven weren't in range, and he bitterly wondered if that had been an intentional design point of the Black Comet. They'd apparently foreseen everything else that he and the others had thrown at them.

At last, he smashed his way through to what had to be the central control room, with Dume still floating on that platform, the Chaos Emeralds inset into the wall above him. From the back, Shadow saw the band for what it was: an effective seatbelt, anchoring Dume to the platform by way of a slender post. Dume turned his vehicle around as Shadow made his crashing entrance.

"Shadow... I'm very impressed. But it's time to bring an end to this foolishness."

The black hedgehog charged for him, snarling fiercely.

"_**STOP.**_"

The command had been spoken in a very deep voice, and something about it reverberated in Shadow's head with a combination of harmonics like nothing he'd ever heard before, pinning him, driving the command into his bones with irresistible force. Against his will, his legs locked, halting him.

"_**You can't really think that you, a mere hedgehog, not even knowing who or what you are, can stop us.**_" With that bizarre resonance in Dume's voice, if it was his voice it was in, Shadow was finding it nearly impossible to even think about anything else, let alone move. "_**I hoped you would remember... you would have made an ideal right hand for me, as you were created to be for my father. But your professor was betrayed by one of his own, and so... the knowledge we gained was passed on to me.**_

"_**I can control you, Shadow. You can feel it.**_"

Shadow tried to say something. Anything. It came out as a throaty whimper.

"_**You cannot escape me. You can't run or fight. Watch with me as our plan is fulfilled...**_" Dume activated the control room's main screen, which was just below the Chaos Emeralds. It showed the ruins of what might have once been Westopolis - now, the city was shadowed by the immense _Kayzen_, four sturdy metal limbs delved deep into the land, heedless of the destruction wrought. "_**This will be the seat of our conquest.**_"

Shadow twitched. He still couldn't think.

After less than half a minute, the screen fuzzed itself out. Dume leaned closer to it.

"_**Something's interfering with the transmission... what is this?!**_"

The screen cleared again to show old, undated footage of Gerald Robotnik. Shadow pricked up his ears. Just looking at him, he realised the recording had to have been before the attack: Gerald's stooped frame was ever so slightly portly, as he'd been before sorrow and insanity had melted the flesh from his bones. The professor was just as Shadow remembered him from the old days, bushy grey moustache brushed but never quite tamed, face lined with age but not grief, though his expression was unusually serious and solemn.

"Shadow, my son..." Gerald paused, collecting his thoughts. "If you're listening to this, then the worst has happened... You need to know the truth. I'm afraid this station will have been shut down... that all of us who know about you will have been imprisoned." He bowed his head, the ceiling lights shining on his bald scalp. "It's my fault, Shadow... I'm so sorry."

Gerald lifted his head again, looking into the camera as if he could see Shadow's eyes on the other side, though it was fifty years too late. "My research was always funded because of the war, but I wanted to stop it... I wanted peace, for all of Mobius." The professor paused, taking a deep breath. "When my team were unable to create you alone... I made contact with a scientist of Soleanna, Professor Banel Dume."

Shadow's shoulders sank. So that much _was_ true.

"His research focused on life and the mind, where mine concentrated on Chaos Energy... I knew that with his help, we would succeed. In return, I promised him the Chaos Emeralds... I could already see that where I wanted peace, he wanted victory. And his researchers had as much drive as our own."

Gerald slowly shook his head, and Shadow felt like the worst thing in the world. It was true. He'd been a bargaining chip against the Chaos Emeralds, a weapon in the war.

But the professor continued. "Please listen very carefully, Shadow... no matter what has happened, or what they tell you. Dume and his fellows will take our world from us if they are not stopped, and I am afraid that without you, the only way to prevent it will be with crimes as great as theirs. That is why I have done this... you, and only you, have a chance to put an end to it all.

"The government believes that the Eclipse Cannon is our weapon against them, but I cannot allow that to happen unless there is no alternative. They are designing a flagship powered by the results of my own research, an invincible flying fortress they call the Black Comet. It will be their military headquarters, their base of operations. There will be no civilians aboard..."

Gerald paused. He looked away from the camera briefly, but the enormity of his next statement forced him to look back into it. "If you cannot stop the war any other way, Shadow, then you _must_ use Chaos Control to take that ship into space and turn the Eclipse Cannon on it. I am sorry, Shadow... sorry for this burden, for what I have done. But the future of this planet depends on you..."

Off-camera, a door opened. Gerald looked to the side, alarmed and still sorrowful; a moment later, none other than Maria came into shot to hug him, concerned. "What's happening, Grandfather?"

"I'm recording a message to Shadow... asking him to protect the planet when I'm gone, for all of us."

Maria's response was cheerful and innocent. "Don't worry, Grandfather, Shadow and I will protect it." From her angle, she couldn't see Gerald's expression as it twisted into fear and self-hatred; she turned to look at the camera without ever seeing his face. "Right, Shadow?"

"I know you will." The professor's voice was so sad, so quiet. He reached forward, and the recording ended.

In the Black Comet's central control room, Shadow and Dume were both silent in the wake of the recording as the screen fizzled out and returned to showing the devastated Westopolis. Dume spoke first, quietly, thinking out loud without quite seeming aware of it. "Professor Robotnik... you old fool! You never thought we'd have some way to counter such an obvious move?"

Below him, Shadow straightened up. Gerald had called him his son at the start of the recording, and the rest of its message was clear: no matter why he'd originally been created, Gerald believed in him to stop the ancestors of what would become the Black Arms, to protect Mobius from those who would destroy it. Knowing that truth, he felt lighter, more clear-headed, like he had just dropped a heavy weight - not just because of Gerald's words, he suddenly realised. The compelling tone was gone from Dume's voice. He could think again. Barely moving, Shadow looked around the room, and for the first time realised he was surrounded by speakers with somewhat odd curves, designed to give full surround sound. Dume's left hand had its forefinger out, all but hiding a button that was no longer quite depressed - that button had to be the control mechanism.

Shadow moved.

Curling and jumping, he charged for the nearest speaker, and at nearly the same time Dume saw him and issued a "_**STOP!**_" command. Shadow hadn't quite reached top speed, and the resonances still caught at his nerves and jarred his reflexes - he hit the speaker awkwardly. But he did hit it, simple momentum carrying him there over the resonance, and at the speed he was going the sound was Doppler-shifted out of true, taking some of the force out of it. Despite feeling off-balance, Shadow kicked off and spun through the air for the next speaker. The next rebound jarred his injured leg badly, pain flaring through it, and Dume was yelling at him repeatedly to _**STOP**_; Shadow felt half-paralysed, but momentum, the Doppler shift, and sheer stubborn will kept him going. He refused to let things be this way, to let the Black Arms win. Dume even fired on him at one point, taking a shot from a sidearm Shadow hadn't noticed before, but he missed completely.

Every speaker destroyed made Shadow's head clear further, the sound coming from fewer angles, until at last the final one was caved in and useless. The hedgehog landed tall in the centre of the room, satisfied in seeing Dume, for the first time, look alarmed for more than an instant, though he got himself under control quickly, backing his floating vehicle into a recess in the wall.

"Well, well, well... seems like you figured out the control mechanism."

Shadow took a deliberate, full-weight step forward on his injured leg, ignoring the blood he could feel oozing down it. "You're boring me to death, Dume. I'm not your _puppet_. This ends now."

"Very well, then! Say goodbye, Shadow!" There was a click as his hovercraft touched something in the recess - and he was gone, propelled upwards so quickly he had to be using artificial gravity to counteract the acceleration and keep himself from blacking out.

Shadow watched it go, but a crackle turned his attention back to the room; a small speaker, too little to have been part of the deep bass resonances that had been controlling him, had come on. The voice that came through was rather tinny, and it sounded strained and hoarse, but it was unmistakably Tails. "I think I've-" and he broke off to cough, "-got him. Shadow? Shadow!"

Surprised, the hedgehog darted across the room and put his hands on either side of the speaker. "Tails?! Are you all right?!"

He heard Sonic cough. "We're - we're fine, Shadow."

"Sonic got us out of there!" Even Amy's voice was oddly harsh, a far cry from her usual slightly childish one.

"We all - all made it," said Tails. "We're gonna be okay!"

Shadow let out a relieved, shaky breath he hadn't been aware he'd been holding. They were all alive, and the second weight fell from him. Above him, quite a ways above him, something loud activated, and the room's screen blipped out. Shadow looked up at it, frowning, but quickly turned his attention back to the speaker as Rouge spoke next, the normally sultry bat sounding like she'd spent a solid week yelling, all the smoothness in her voice gone. "Can you find a remote - ...'mote headset?"

"Even a phone?" Tails offered. "We're tapping into the... ship's systems. I can - can keep a line open to you as long as-" He coughed again. "...as long as you have something to receive me with."

Shadow looked around the trashed room. "I don't see anything. But I have the Chaos Emeralds - I'm going after Dume with them."

"Good!" Sonic said. "Something s-seriously weird is... 's happening out there! You can do it!"

"Be careful, Shadow!" croaked Amy.

"If you-" Tails still seemed to be having even more trouble than the others, pausing to take a sharp breath. "-find anything to receive us - we'll help you!"

Shadow nodded in an automatic response, even though the others couldn't see him. "Got it." After a moment, he backed off, taking a deep breath and looking up at the seven Chaos Emeralds. He closed his eyes, calling on their ancient power, there as it always had been, the slots in the wall no hindrance. He felt their power as they drifted down to float around him in a circle, their light shining brighter and brighter behind his eyelids. Chaos Energy coursed through the air between them and around him like a wild thing, taking every bit of Shadow's focus and strength to control it until it reached that plateau of equilibrium he'd only passed once before, and Shadow opened his eyes, staring at himself.

This wasn't what he'd done with Sonic - it was harder, stronger, much more intense, black fur turned blazing golden instead of silver, the Emeralds' power wreathing him in visible tracers. Was it because he was using all of their power instead of sharing it with Sonic?

He shook his head. No time to ponder it, not now. He rose upward with the Emeralds' power, jets unused, going relatively slowly, slow enough that he could see what the other rooms held. The Emeralds saw to it that the _Kayzen's_ layers of ceiling didn't stand in his way, tearing holes through the metal as if it were paper. A few floors from the outer hull, Shadow saw what he was looking for - a little communicator, even designed for Mobians of his own basic ear shape. Very carefully, managing to not melt or crush it, he clipped it on, and his ear flicked involuntarily several times, sensitive even through this state's invulnerability. Shadow wasn't sure why, and for the moment, he ignored it. "Tails, are you there?"

"I hear you, Shadow! I have-" a cough "-your frequency!" Tails' voice was coming through with a bit of static, further distorting his poison-altered voice.

"He's taken off in some... big ship thing!" Sonic added.

"I guess I'll see it once I'm off the Black Comet." No longer needing caution, Shadow rocketed upward, slamming through everything in his path, the thick outer hull and shields combined not even slowing him down. The scene outside was of utter devastation.

All around the _Kayzen_, and around the four gigantic support rods it had driven into the earth, fires were raging, turning the sky a smoky, sullen red. Only a handful of fighters were around the ship now, looking like dumb autonomous drones probably built by Ivo, insect-darting their way around the hull as its remaining outer turrets attempted to shoot them down. Their battles weren't of any importance. Slowly turning, Shadow saw through the haze what he had to have been looking for.

Dume's craft was small compared to the _Kayzen_, but still as large as a good-sized building, symmetrical fore and aft to the extent that Shadow couldn't actually tell which was which at this distance, gravity plates covering its hull, surely more than it needed to keep aloft. The human's voice crackled in his earpiece. "My father helped create you, Shadow, and now I will destroy you!" The extra gravity plates activated, shimmering, warping space around the ship. Debris began to rise up from the ground, starting small: street signs, trash bins, twisted shutters torn loose from their shopfronts; progressing up to entire cars, planters still full of soil, uprooted city trees; even vast chunks of _building_, all surrounding Dume's ship in a protective field. "You will not stand in our way!"

Shadow knew Dume couldn't see his expression, but suspected he could hear it. "I made a promise, Dume. I'm keeping it." He surged forward, for the moment ignoring the debris and tearing straight through it, though it did slow him down a little; what was important now was assessing weak points. A half-circle around the giant machine showed him what he was looking for: what had to be the aft, sporting a white-hot radiator raised like a wing-flap at the top, extending over some form of green-glowing engine. The power he could feel from it was much akin to the green orb in the activated temple in the canyons where he'd fought alongside Knuckles. Oddly enough, he could feel another power source much like it, identical even, at the fore end, though nothing but flat plated metal showed there.

The craft turned with Shadow as he arced toward its exposed systems, trying to keep him away, but he was naturally faster. The defensive beams began firing, carving bright swathes through the air that would have left Shadow dazzled if he hadn't been using the Emeralds' power. At best, they could only delay him while he was in this state.

Even so, the engine was much too large for even a charged-up Shadow to do effective damage from within. Focusing and summoning the Emeralds' power, he charged and loosed an enormous Chaos Spear, a hundred times more powerful than anything he could normally do, blazing through the air with an intensity to match the defensive lasers, burning clear through the outer shield shell like it was nothing. It struck the engine in a coruscating display of sparks and smoke, shaking the entire ship - the debris fell as the power supply faltered, Shadow arcing away to both watch it and loop through concentrated rings of Chaos Energy, maintaining his hold on the seven Emeralds.

It wouldn't be that easy, of course. The ship righted itself before it could fall, and as the smoke cleared and a new debris field lifted up from the wreckage of the city below, Shadow could only see smoothly plated hull. The other one had to be some kind of backup.

"It's using some kind of power source like the temples had!"

He heard Knuckles give a startled exclamation of some sort, too far away from the microphone for Shadow to pick out; it was Tails who actually answered him. "I have some of- of the schematics! It's - got redundant engines - at both ends! It can fly - fly e-either way just as easily! Pilot's in the - shielded centre! The gravity plates will - keep you back-" and he broke off completely, coughing helplessly.

Sonic again finished the thought Tails had been trying to. "You've gotta cut the power to them!"

Shadow attempted to get underneath the ship - a lucky sweep from the defensive beams caught him and sent him tumbling back and into the side of an airborne building. He came blazing out, charging up another Chaos Spear and loosing it at where he could sense the second power source. It arced unerringly toward it - only to be intercepted by a tumbling car, where it spent its power on reducing the vehicle to a few sorry drops of molten metal.

He had to get closer.

After weaving through some of the lasers, Shadow summoned the Emeralds' power for a Chaos Control as he was halfway through charging another Spear, aiming to come out just above the second power source. It worked better than he'd expected; the gravity plates and their intense warping of the nearby space affected his aim, but he was in place to fire. Sure enough, this end of the ship now looked exactly like the other half had a few minutes previously. Even as the lasers rushed to compensate, they were only swinging back around at a medium sort of speed for Shadow, and he was unresisted as he fired off his charged bolt into this engine.

By virtue of where his Chaos Control had popped him back into regular space and the way the confused wind was eddying, he just about saw what happened next: the Chaos Spear left a deep, burning scar straight into a section of the engine, shutting that part down for good, and the assembly closed again into the protected hull, the falling ship righting itself and rising again as, he could only assume, the other end opened up once more.

"Go Shadow!" cheered Amy, a celebratory yell that broke off into coughing and wheezing behind Rouge's hoarse encouragement.

"Keep it up!"

Shadow had a go at getting closer to the other side of the ship, keenly aware of his own limits; he'd need to run through more vortices of energy if he couldn't get a perfect shot off now. The debris field was thicker than ever, though Shadow could sense the weakened power supplies labouring under the strain. He got a good third of the way there when something slammed into him from behind.

Tumbling through the air, he could see that Dume was now using the debris field as a weapon in its own right, augmenting the lasers. Once he'd recovered himself, Shadow streaked off away from the flying mech, taking a minute to absorb more Chaos Energy to maintain his use of the Emeralds. It was easier than it could have been, the forces wracking the ether leaving it tangled and twisted, collecting hoops of power just as surely as dents collect rainwater. The ship bore down on him, either because its pilot realised what Shadow was up to or simply because he thought he was running away; whatever the reason, Shadow dodged most of it easily, looping through energy rings until he was satisfied.

He paused once he'd finished, hovering in the air to look back at the ship, calculating his next move and readying a new attack. "...Chaos Control!" Shadow was suddenly above the exposed engine, almost right next to it, and it was clear it couldn't take much more abuse. At the same time he arrived, though, all the beams flashed on at once, intersecting just past the current rear of the ship and sweeping outwards; Dume had been ready for that.

So, instead of a focused Chaos Spear, Shadow let go of the energy he'd stored all at once, blasting outwards in a golden sphere of destruction. Dreams, after all, could provide good ideas. The beams failed against the outer edge, and the engine - the engine died a smoking, crippled death, radiating only feebly and unable to fold away. The first lance had been a precision strike; the second barely-controlled blast was more superficial. Combined, however, they brought ruin deep within. Dume's great ship faltered, tipping wildly sideways, debris plummeting from the sky. It took him longer than before to restabilise, and only then at an angle, longer still to pull the debris field back up, now dancing around the remaining engine in a protective tornado, the beams again active and attempting to converge on Shadow.

The golden hedgehog, however, still had one more trick to his name. For the final approach, he summoned the positive power of all seven Emeralds, speeding up faster than ever, so fast he guessed anyone watching would be seeing him less not as a continuous presence but more flashing through the air, too fast for a normal human or Mobian to track - but, for Shadow himself, time slowed to an inch-by-inch crawl. Easily, effortlessly, he saw debris come for him and pulled lazily out of the way. The beams? They were nothing, exposed gaps between them laughably easily to pick out and exploit. He overshot the engine and swerved, the air itself a thick syrup through which he glided, finally stopping above the second power source at last.

As he finished charging his last Chaos Spear, Shadow contemplated its glowing greenness and the patterns of the smoke emanating from it. He didn't pick anything in particular out of the smoke, but looking past it, he saw naked a perfect target in the core of the engine to strike. The Spear emerged and flickered its way into the engine in jumpy little starts, thread-thin, forking out into dead ends as the main part of his lightning sought out its target. Inch by inch, foot by yard and it struck, Shadow's time returning to normal as the bolt pulled energy up into itself and obliterated the power supply.

That had taken a lot out of him, but the results were clearly worth it. The debris field made a final descent, crashing into the ruins below, and Dume's ship quaked and began to follow, all the beams shutting off, the ship tilting wildly on the way down - and slowing, just barely, as an emergency generator activated perhaps one in twenty of the once-powerful gravity plates. All power was given over to keeping the ship in the air: it was unshielded, helpless, it and the pilot completely at Shadow's mercy.

Shadow had soon crashed into the cockpit, bringing his golden light with him to shine on Dume, and he glared down at the human. Dume was frozen in his seat; he still had his sidearm, and was clearly aware it would be worse than useless against _that, _that if he so much twitched a finger toward it, Shadow would probably kill him. Neither moved for several seconds.

"...Brutus."

Dume blinked as Shadow spoke, confused.

It took several moments before Brutus answered through the static. He was very quiet, aged somehow beyond even what the gas had done to them all. "Yes?"

"Where are your closest soldiers who can handle an arrest?"

"Wha-" The old general coughed. He evidently couldn't say any more for a moment, for Tails took over.

"GUN seem to have pulled out of the city, but there's a - a presence on the outskirts. Would - would they be - robots?"

"...Most of them, but not all. They'll - have tacticians and technicians in command."

"Very well," Shadow answered. He snapped his attention back to Dume. "_Drop your weapons._"

The human slowly lifted his hands away from his control panel and up into the air, staring at Shadow with unreasoning fury in his eyes, fury kept harshly leashed by the cold logic of his situation. One wrong move could still mean his death. Shadow relieved him of his sidearm and pulled back, looking at it. He held the weapon clear of the ship's hull and squeezed on the muzzle - it disintegrated with a squeal of metal, leaving the back end to plummet to an unseen fate below. "Anything else?"

Still fixing Shadow with that icily burning glare, Dume shook his head a minute fraction, just enough to answer.

"You'd better be telling the truth." Shadow grabbed him by his right arm and concentrated. "Chaos Control!"

They reappeared on the outskirts of the broken city, as luck would have it right above an extremely surprised soldier, who shielded his eyes against the bright gold of Shadow's charged-up glory. The robots around him automatically turned to track a target appearing well within their threat range, but a "Cancel! Hold fire!" from their commander stayed them.

"If I leave him here," asked Shadow, "can you hold him?"

The soldier blinked. "...Yes, of course. FD-12, restraints, maximum security." To his credit, his voice didn't waver despite the disbelief in his tone. One of the more humanoid robots nearby obligingly opened a panel in its side, offering a set of high-tech handcuffs and matching ankle shackles to its commander. Dume gritted his teeth, and Shadow felt him tense as if to kick out or otherwise struggle. The hedgehog lowered them abruptly down, enough to send a message and force Dume's knees to buckle, but not enough to hurt him. Dume glared at the still off-balance soldier and spat something in a language Shadow didn't speak, but if he was understood, the soldier didn't react to him.

"Pin his legs, FD-12."

The robot walked around as stolidly as it surely performed all its duties, bending to grip Dume just below the knees. The insurgency's mastermind started struggling instants before he was touched, cool control finally snapped. He struck the robot's tough metal plating, a move that had to hurt his hand more than it damaged FD-12, and he couldn't budge Shadow even a millimetre. The hedgehog grabbed Dume's other arm as it swing by, stopping him as surely as if he'd just been pinioned by an entire mountain; this set off an explosive string of what sounded like curses on Shadow and Gerald and possibly other things as the soldier shackled his legs together. The hedgehog flattened his ears to his skull, drowning out a good chunk of it. He held steady and firm until Dume's hands were also bound and FD-12 locked a broad and solid hand around his left arm. The leader of the Black Arms could only look on, trembling with fury, fear, and failure, as Shadow addressed the robots' commander.

"Do you need anything else?"

"That... that will do. _Thank you_. We all owe you for what you've done here today."

Shadow was quiet for a moment, finally acknowledging the statement with a nod. He turned and set off for the _Kayzen_ again. "Tails? Where exactly are all of you?"

"Still... still near that room. It was - pretty tough to get this far."

"It's not - so bad!" Sonic added, somewhat undermining his point as he broke off into a rapid-fire coughing fit.

"We're outside the gas..." breathed Rouge. "That's what's important. We found a room..."

"And locked the - door," Knuckles finished.

"Right. I'll be there shortly." Shadow flew easily over Westopolis, collecting energy as he went. Below him, he spied what looked like a refugee camp, and noticed an international medical aid symbol. Good - that would do nicely.

He spent a good few minutes collecting as much Chaos Energy as he could from above the now-downed ship he'd just done battle with, knowing he'd need every scrap he could get for what he was about to do, before warping himself into the _Kayzen,_ into the hall just before the fateful audience chamber. A little to his left side, he heard Knuckles announce him arriving, and again warped, this time to the room he heard the echidna's voice coming from, where he cast a worried look around at his friends. They were all sitting around, in chairs or against walls. Most of them looked up as he entered, kept looking at him while squinting. Brutus almost immediately lowered his head again, unable to look directly at him for one reason or another.

"You did - did it!" cried Amy.

"Hy-yper, eh?" Not even Sonic looked well, his permanent restlessness quelled, movements oddly shaky. They all seemed to be experiencing tremors, and Tails coughed.

"Hyper?" Shadow shook his head. "You can explain later. I'm getting you all out of here."

"Thanks... we found some antidote, but - " and Rouge grimaced, "it was fifty years out of - of date."

"At least," said Knuckles, pausing to suppress a cough and mainly succeeding in hacking, "it worked enough to keep - keep us alive."

Shadow swallowed. They'd be okay. They would be. "Is everyone ready?"

At a hoarse chorus of affirmatives, Shadow activated a warp, doing his best to make the inevitable landing a little easier on his friends. The flash of their arrival and the golden glow from Shadow understandably shook the refugees. It was a doctor who got over the shock first, crossing to the group with two assistants flanking her.

"What in the world?!"

"The Black Arms poisoned them; some kind of nerve gas. They found some antidote, but it was very outdated. Can you help them?"

The doctor's eyes widened, but her response was confident, already directing her nurses with hand gestures as she spoke; they ran back to the main body of the camp. "Of course! Do you know what they were hit with?"

"Um... not by name." Shadow looked worriedly down at his sick friends.

Rouge named something, some fairly long-named compound Shadow couldn't repeat offhand. The doctor, at least, seemed to understand, which was the important part.

"Yes, we can handle some preliminary treatment. As long as we get you all to a proper hospital by this time tomorrow, I daresay you'll be all right."

Help from the nurses and some of the able-bodied refugees was arriving, carrying a set of stretchers among them. Brutus was getting loaded up first, no doubt because of his advanced age compared to the rest; Shadow heard a light clatter as he emptied his pistol's bullet chamber. As the refugees moved in to help the others, Sonic rose, fairly unstably but as stubborn as Shadow himself. Seeing him stumbling his way toward the camp with two people flanking him, the others carried off to safety, Shadow was satisfied. He disappeared from the refugee camp, reappearing underneath the Black Arms' gigantic flying fortress.

There he rested his hands on the bottom hull, closed his eyes and concentrated, at last pulling off a Chaos Control second in power only to the one he and Sonic had used to save Mobius from the falling ARK. Once the ship was in place, drifting in the start of an orbit, Shadow warped again, directly into the ARK's central control room, where he slowly began charging down, concentrating as hard as he could to do it in seven equal stages.

Green first, the first Emerald he'd discovered, handed over by the Black Arms.

Deep dark ocean blue, the second, snatched at the cost of a shot to his leg that had been mildly hindering him almost since this madness he'd come through had begun.

Red as Knuckles and found with him, resting on its tip on the outskirts of beautiful, stately old ruins.

Frustrating white, carried away from him by the Cyclone and briefly returned to its owner after memories and morality returned at last.

Purple, snatched from out of Ivo's virtual machine.

Light sky blue coming back to its last crystallisation point inside the abandoned colony, or very close to it.

And, finally, yellow, handed to him by the military - by Brutus with the heterochroma, his friend all grown up.

Shadow dropped to the ground, fur finally black again, and panted for air. The Chaos Emeralds were arranged neatly in front of him as if waiting with their mysterious ancient patience for whatever he wanted next. He barely allowed himself half a minute to collect himself before he stood up and picked the Emeralds up again, slotting them one-by-one into the cannon's control panel. He knew Gerald's program had only meant to run once, for the obvious reasons. With it already come and gone, what he was doing was perfectly safe, at least for Mobius as a whole. With all seven Emeralds in place, the cannon charged up to full power in instants, and Shadow aimed.

Locked on.

Fired.

He watched through the ARK's cameras as the cannon's pulse lanced through space at the Black Comet. The _Kayzen_ was tough, but not even its sturdy, shielded hull was any match for the might of the Eclipse Cannon. It resisted at first, only to abruptly give out, buckling, the entire ship imploding, its superstructure falling inward as what had previously lain within was annihilated. Shockingly soon, the entire ship was gone but for chunks of hull plating and other chance debris, and the cannon's pulse ended.

Shadow stood there, unmoving but for his breath, for quite some time.

He'd just done that.

Eventually, he called the Chaos Emeralds back to him, storing their power but letting it lie quiescent, and wandered off, across the catwalk from the Eclipse Cannon's controls and out into the rest of the ARK. He didn't know quite where he was going, nor quite what he was thinking.

The halls he was in were familiar enough. He'd been around and through them repeatedly when Gerald had taken him back to the ARK, their hearts and minds twisted with sorrow, and when he'd carried out his creator's plans for dropping the colony into Mobius like an extinction meteor, but he'd never been in that part of the ARK before the attack. Secret projects weren't allowed to be wandering into other secret projects. Back then, though, he hadn't cared. He had plenty of friends, a safe environment, wide enough spaces to roam what felt like endlessly. Testing was fun, for the most part, and if the researchers pushed him at times, it was because he could handle it and enjoyed pushing himself.

Shadow stopped, looking up at a door. He recognised the designation - access for Project Shadow personnel only. The hall beyond led to where he'd first woken up. And past there... past there was the secured entrance to where he'd been quarantined, his bedroom.

When had he wandered into this part of the ARK, anyway? He had to have gone on autopilot, feet carrying him back to the halls he'd been familiar with. A little more walking brought him to the exterior entrance to his old room. The hedgehog stopped again, steeled himself for a few seconds, and opened the door. It didn't look as bad as it had when he'd first come up with Ivo, but he hadn't had time to do much beyond clean the most obviously broken items off the floor and put some of his intact possessions away. Most of his old things had been damaged or destroyed, GUN searching frantically for him before they must have received the intelligence that he'd escaped.

Still, Shadow entered, steps slow, and looked around. Over there was his squat bookshelf, and he saw the photograph collection, published by esteemed explorers, that Maria had brought over once and left as a gift. They'd spent hours marvelling at the wonders of the planet neither had seen, awe-inspiring storms and eruptions, sprawling cities and backwater villages, animals sapient and not with incredible skills. Next to it was a companion from the same series, that one about the huge cosmic world of the stars and quasars, black holes and white dwarfs, some of the pictures even taken from the ARK itself.

Shadow looked away, eyes lighting on an old toy. He didn't really want to think about how grand Mobius was and how much more enormous the universe was right that moment. Despite or because of what he'd just accomplished, he felt plenty small enough already. He stepped over to the toy, a little non-Mobian hippopotamus with a head attached to the body by a spring; it had survived the ransacking intact by some miracle, and he'd taken the time to restore it to its proper place on his reading desk the last time he'd been in.

He flicked down the head with one finger. The smiling hippo nodded at him. Shadow felt completely absurd for a moment, and another later realised he didn't care. He made a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a sigh and turned toward his bed's end table. There was a framed picture laying face down on it. Shadow swallowed. He turned and flicked the hippo's head again, watched it bobble a few times, and abruptly snapped around to walk up to the table, where he grabbed the photo without looking at it and nearly jogged out of his room, leaving the door open behind him.

Slowing to a proper walk again, he knew, then, exactly where he was headed. His thoughts were still another story.

Eventually, Shadow reached his destination: one of the ARK's observatories, looking peacefully down at the planet below. It was the very same where he and Maria had spent a lot of time gazing down in wonder at Mobius, longing to go down there, see what it was like, find answers. The very same where Maria had died.

He hesitated on the threshold for a few moments before entering, walking right up to the window and looking down. Mobius was blue and white before him. At last, Shadow turned over the photo and looked down at it.

Gerald, his creator - no, his _father_ - looked back at him, his sister-in-spirit Maria holding on to the back of Gerald's chair and looking Shadow's way as well. Or their images did. Both of them were long dead. Shadow swallowed on nothing and looked back at Mobius, stretching a hand to lightly rest his fingers on the window's triply-reinforced glass. For the first time since leaving the refugee camp, he spoke.

"I think... you'd have been proud of me." He looked down at the picture in his left hand and all but squeaked his next word. "Right?"

There were tears on the old glass. Shadow didn't care. No one was around to see it. He sniffed and looked back at Mobius. "...I won't forget. I'll make my own destiny. What both of you really wanted... I want, too. I'll keep them safe."

Mobius was safe.

Shadow's friends - the ones still alive, that he'd made in the terror and splendour of the last few days - they were safe.

In the end, that was all that mattered.


	12. Epilogue: And I Feel Alive

Sonic was stretching his legs in the area of Tails' workshop and Station Square, an act that had already put him several miles away from either. Life hadn't been that exciting since the incident with the Black Arms several months previous; their leader, Saven Dume, had been tried and imprisoned along with a few other higher-ups in the insurgency that had turned up, and Eggman was as inactive as he ever got.

Shadow hadn't been around, not since shortly after the trial ended. Sonic had been on his feet by then! Everyone had, to a one making full recoveries from the Black Arms' attempt to poison them. The government had thrown a party for Shadow, gave him trophies and a big heroing cheque and all sorts, that General Tower guy had made some official apology for the ARK disaster to the remaining survivors and their descendants on GUN's behalf, and off Shadow went to explore the world on his own. Sonic couldn't fault him for that - it wasn't like he didn't go globe-trotting himself - but without him around it was one less person to play with, one less thing to do, and the day had so far been a pretty boring, average - Chaos Emerald.

The blue hedgehog skidded to a stop, twitching his ears even though there was nothing around to hear but the wildlife. Yeah, definitely a Chaos Emerald, and moving at high speed. Shadow had given those back to various people - not including Eggman, of course! - and kept one for himself. That speed... in that direction...

"Found you, Faker!" Sonic bolted off, grinning, following his senses. Shadow, and it had to be him, evidently sensed Sonic's own Emerald, for he changed direction toward him. It wasn't long at all before they saw each other, and Shadow stopped, letting Sonic come to him.

"Hey, Shadow!"

"Hello, Sonic. It's been a while." The black-and-red hedgehog was calm as ever, same old Shadow as always, even if the weirdo _was_ wearing a vest about the same shade as his black fur to carry his stuff in.

"It sure has! Where've you been?"

"Where haven't I been?" Shadow smiled, quietly happy in a way Sonic hadn't yet seen in him.

Sonic laughed. "Fun, eh?"

"Oh, yes. I'll have to show you the pictures I took. Later, though." He smirked, again not quite in the way Sonic had got used to over the short time they'd known one another. He was almost playful, and definitely challenging. "Ready for that race? I think Station Square would make a nice target."

Was he ever! He'd made that challenge back when Shadow's leg had been torn up, hadn't let the guy forget about it even when the doctors still wouldn't even let him out of bed. "You're on! Loser buys lunch!" Sonic grinned as he got into a starting position. "So I hope you have some money!"

"I _know_ you do." Shadow got into position alongside him, letting Sonic count them down.

"Ready... set... _go!_" Sonic took off in a burst of speed only Shadow could match, and match it he did.

Miles blurred by in a scant handful of minutes as they raced, now together, now apart, first one ahead, then the other. Sonic found ways to work stunts into just about every major leap he took, and Shadow was no better, the pair of them revelling in the freedom of their speed. As they reached the outskirts of Station Square, Sonic had pulled ahead, and he slowed down to something resembling a sensible speed to avoid driving all the cars off the road they'd ended up on, only going about ninety miles per hour or so. He still ran straight down the middle of the road, dodging traffic with ease, finally leaping clean over a decorative fence to stop at a fountain in the centre of a small park, where he turned to look for Shadow. The other hedgehog leapt the same fence only seconds later and stopped as well.

They were both out of breath, and Sonic was grinning. Man, but it sure felt good having someone he actually needed to work to beat around, never mind beating him fair and square. "Heh, not bad, Shadow - but lunch is on you!"

His friend pointed at him. "Next time."

"You wish."

Shadow chuckled at that. "All right. Where's someplace good?"

"This way!" Sonic set off briskly, Shadow placidly keeping up at his side. "There's a place here that does the best chili dogs in this half of the country!"

"The best what?"

"Chili dogs! Man, don't tell me you've never tried them? You're missing out!"

Shadow smiled again. "Well," he said, "there's a first time for everything."

* * *

_**Sparky:**_ _And that, as they say, is that._

Insurrection_ started life as an idea in Ardil's head to rework some of the less awesome Sonic games into something cool, spurred by Sonic Generations. Suffice it to say this is the first tale, but certainly not the last, in this adventure - more on that in Ardil's section of the afterword!_

_As we often do, we told the story via a series of role-plays. Not long after that romp, NaNoWriMo came around, and Ardil encouraged me to join. So I did, and what you see is the edited and hopefully fun result. (Among other things, I forgot what a moustache was. Twice.) I know I had fun, first in RPing an amnesic, confused Shadow reacting to the weirdness Saven, Sonic, and company threw at him, then in doing the write up. I hope all of you readers had fun, too - let us know how we did, and happy trails!_

_**Ardil:**__ Hey guys! So, Insurrection is over... but I wouldn't run off crying (or celebrating!) yet if I were you! Project Blur continues on, albeit somewhat slowly on my side as I'm way too busy right now. Specifically, there should be various short pieces and reflections appearing, followed by the next story: Sonic Heroes, Project Blur style! So, keep an eye on our profile - all kinds of interesting things might just show up! And, as ever, don't forget to let us know what you think... ~_^_

_Acknowledgements: Thanks on my part go out to Sparky (duh), for co-authoring and writing up this particular beast, and to the good people at SEGA for all the good (by my standards) Sonic games they've put out... and, yes, for the bad ones as well, I guess. After all, without those, this project wouldn't exist!_

_See you next time!_


End file.
